Rotolo with pumpkin, hazelnuts, soft cheese and sage butter
The thought of rolling up what is essentially some great big cannelloni into a tea towel and poaching it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it is surprisingly straightforward. The pumpkin, hazelnut and soft cheese combo is a crowd-pleasing winner, but you can fill the rotolo with anything you like; sautéed mushrooms, spinach and ricotta or courgette, feta and lemon are all good alternatives.
If you really can't be bothered with the process of making pasta dough and rolling it out, then by all means, get hold of some pre-made pasta sheets.
Ingredients:
- 500g of 00-grade or high-grade flour, plus a little extra
- 1 tsp salt
- 5 large eggs
- half a large butternut pumpkin, peeled and de-seeded
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 100g soft white cheese such as ricotta, buffalo mozzarella or chèvre
- ½ cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
- 200g butter
- handful of sage leaves
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
- Start with the pasta. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt, then create a well in the middle, drop in the eggs, whisk them up with a fork a little, then gradually work the flour into the eggs until everything is incorporated and you are left with a dough. Knead for several minutes so that the dough becomes smooth and elastic, then shape into a flat discus shape, cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour.
- In the meantime, cut the pumpkin into crescents and add to an oiled baking dish. Season well with salt and pepper and roast until tender.
- Roll the rested pasta out, using a pasta machine (or a rolling pin, alternatively), to a thickness of about 1-2 millimetres. What you want to end up with is a length of pasta about 80cm long by 20cm wide.
- Place a fresh, clean tea towel out on the bench and lay the sheet of pasta over the top. Trim the ends so that you have at least two inches of tea towel showing lengthways at each end. Arrange a generous amount of pumpkin down the middle, allowing for a few inches on either side. Run a length of cheese down the middle of the pumpkin, and scatter over the hazelnuts.
- Using the tea towel as a guide, tightly roll the whole thing up as you would a sort of Swiss roll, making sure that you keep everything tightly together. Pinch down the ends, and wrap the tea towel around the outside of the roll, tying the ends together with string. Place in an accommodating roasting dish, top up with boiling water so that the whole thing is submerged, and pop in the preheated oven for about half an hour, topping up the pan with more hot water if necessary. Check to see if the pasta is al dente – after half an hour it should be nicely done. Carefully remove from the pan, unwrap from the tea towel, and cut into thick slices. Serve with the sage butter spooned over the top.
- As the rotolo is cooking, make the sage butter sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat until the white milk solids have separated out. Strain the milk solids off and discard, and return the clarified butter to the heat in a pan. Once it is quite hot, add the sage leaves and fry quickly until they are crisp. Remove from the heat and use to spoon over the rotolo. Serve immediately.
What else would you like to stuff in your rotolo? Share your ideas in the comments section below.
Written by Sam Mannering. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
Related links:
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