Homemade Cannelloni from Abruzzo (cannelloni all’abruzzese)

5 from 37 votes

Homemade Cannelloni from Abruzzo (cannelloni all’abruzzese)

A delicious traditional homemade cannelloni (manicotti) recipe from central Italy. Cannelloni all'abruzzese are homemade, fresh pasta sheets rolled around a 3 meat filling and baked with butter and cinnamon or in a tomato sauce. You can use dried pasta tubes too.

Prep Time1

Cook Time30

Course: Homemade Pasta, Main Course

Cuisine: Abruzzo, Central Italy, Italian, Mediterranean

Keyword: authentic Italian pasta recipe, cannelloni, homemade pasta, manicotti

Servings:

Calories: 745kcal

Author: Jacqui

Ingredients

For the homemade pasta

350 g Italian 00 soft wheat flour (12oz) or all purpose flour or hard wheat semolina flour
150 g fine corn flour (5oz)
1 teaspoon salt
tepid water as required

For the cannelloni filling

400 g mixed ground beef, pork and lamb (14oz) or just 2 types of ground meat
100 g Pecorino Romano ( 3.5oz) grated
4 large eggs or 5 medium
3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil.
30 g unsalted butter (1oz)
1 teaspoon nutmeg freshly grated
salt to taste

For tomato sauce if using

500 g tomato passata (1.1lbs)
2 garlic cloves peeled
fresh basil leaves
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper. to taste
50 g Parmigiano Reggiano (2oz) grated

Instructions

Make the pasta dough and sheets

Sift the soft wheat flour (or hard wheat semolina flour) and the fine corn flour into a bowl or onto a pastry board, add a pinch of salt. Mix the flours and enough water together until you have the beginnings of a dough ball. Then knead on a pastry board until the dough is firm and elastic. Roll the dough into a ball and let it rest covered or wrapped in plastic wrap for 30 minutes.
Cut off about ⅛^th of the dough and roll it out into a thin sheet using a pasta machine or rolling pin (see notes). Cut the dough sheet into15cm squares and place them on a lightly floured surface. Repeat with the rest of the dough and let the ready sheets rest for another 10 minutes.

Make the filling

Mix the ground meat with the pecorino, eggs, salt and nutmeg in a bowl. Heat the olive oil and 20g of butter in a frying pan or skillet and cook the filling mixture stirring more or less continuously until the meat is browned. Set aside and allow to cool.

Parboil the pasta sheets

Bring abundant salted water to a boil, add a tablespoon of olive oil and cook the squares of pasta, a few at a time so that they do not stick together. Remove from the water one at a time and lay them gently on a clean tea towel.

Method 1 : Finish and bake your cannelloni.

Place a little of the prepared meat filling on each square. Roll the sheets of pasta into cannelloni and arrange them seam side down in a pan greased with olive oil or butter. Brush the cannelloni with beaten egg yolk, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of cinnamon powder, add a few small pieces of butter on the top of the cannelloni and bake in a preheated oven at 160 ° C for about 20 minutes. Serve immediately

Method 2 : Cannelloni baked in tomato sauce.

You don’t need to parboil the pasta for this method. I prefer to use thinner fresh pasta sheets than for the first method. You can also use dried cannelloni or manicotti instead.

Make the tomato sauce.

Peel the garlic cloves and sauté them in olive oil until they start to soften. Add the tomato passata and some salt and pepper to taste and simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove the garlic and add the basil. Cook for another 5 minutes on alow heat.

Finish and bake

Place some filling along the centre of each pasta square. Brush one side with egg yolk and roll the pasta around the filling (see photo in the post). Spread some tomato sauce in the bottom of an oven dish and place the cannelloni seam side down in the dish one next to the other.
Cover the cannelloni with the rest of the tomato sauce and sprinkle the top with a generous amount of parmigiano. Bake in a preheated oven at 175°c for about 25 minutes until the pasta is cooked and the cheese topping is slightly browned.

Notes

You can make the cannelloni with tomato sauce with homemade, ready-made fresh and dried pasta. None of these types need parboiling if you have enough sauce as the pasta will cook in the sauce. I recommend adding a little more sauce if using dried pasta tubes. The latter are difficult to fill if parboiled so it's not so easy to make the cinnamon and butter cannelloni with them.

This recipe should make enough cannelloni for a small starter serving for 6 or a main course for 4.

How to roll out pasta sheets with a machine.

Flatten a piece of dough with your hand and then pass it through the widest setting of your machine. On mine it is 7 on others it may be 1. Then fold the dough into three and pass it though the same setting again (see photos in post). Cut the end of the sheet to make it straight and repeat. Next pass the dough sheet through the next setting ( 6 or 2) without folding. I continue until my no 3 (could be 5 on another machine). Then if I want thinner sheets, I use a rolling pin.

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