cannelloni

There are three components that are described separately: 

1) The stuffing can be anything at all. Allow your imagination free flight. Here lamb. Usually contains a mixture including ricotta cheese to lighten and often something vegetable, here spinach. 

2) Pasta can be purchased as preformed tubes -- but honestly, what's the fun in that? -- or they can be handmade. If homemade they can be hand rolled, as here, or rolled out by machine, which is probably a very good idea. 

3) Sauce can be absolutely anything your heart desires that you feel goes with the stuffing. It can be simple as olive oil with garlic, a cream sauce, a tomato-based sauce, a pesto of any sort at all, here the lamb was used to create a sauce along with commercial beef broth.

New Zealand boneless leg of lamb. Only a portion is used for this cannelloni, the rest reserved for something else later. Originally the intention was to grind it as burger but then on impulse the decision was made to process it by Cuisinart instead. Progress was carefully monitored proceeding in pulses to avoid over processing to mush. The meat was partially frozen which made it easier for the blades to slice through the meat rather than dragging it around the bowl. A greater portion is used for the filling, a lesser portion reserved to start the sauce. 

Spinach, the amazing shrinking leaf vegetable, was cooked before combining so that it can shrink no further once it is rolled inside the pasta, otherwise there would be unsightly gaps, and that wouldn't do. Same thing with the onions. The garlic was precooked along with the onion. So, those two things, spinach and onion are pre-shrunk. In the end, this ratio of spinach plus ricotta to lamb  turned out to be incorrect. If you can believe it, too much lamb combined with ricotta and spinach. The cooked mixture turned out too dense to suit me rather than light and fluffy as was the aim and the whole point of including ricotta and vegetable. Live and learn, wot? 

Semolina flour as found in the bulk bins at Whole Foods. Incidentally, the WF a few blocks from my home doesn't carry semolina in their bulk bins but they do have it prepackaged on the shelves, although the two other WFs a few miles off both do carry it in their bulk bins and that makes me wonder, "What is up with that?" 

I do not recommend hand rolling the dough. This turned out slightly too thick. The thing is, the Atlas machine must be clamped onto the work surface and I broke the handle so pliers must be used to clamp it down and then it must be taken down, and I'm sort of over it. I'm basically too lazy to drag it out and attach it. Plus I like rolling things. Plus plus the Atlas determines the width of the rolled dough and I wanted to control that this time. Next time I'll trade size-control for perfection. 

There's gotta be a better way to do this ↑. Actually I have no idea how to cook this cannelloni. Maybe the pasta doesn't even have to be precooked. I do not know. At any rate, I precooked this pasta because I saw it on the teevee. Two of the pasta sheets tore causing no small amount of distress, but after a little swearing I recovered from that.  

But I do love it when I feel a plan coming together. Don't you? 

raw lamb ↑, cooked lamb ↓

A small amount of water was added to create steam, the baking dish was covered with aluminum foil and the cannelloni baked until a probe thermometer showed 200℉ / 90℃

The cannelloni was trimmed on both sides because I wanted nice flat edges. Waste, I know, but what the heck. Notice the diagonal cut on the cannelloni on the bottom. I'm imitating what I saw at Bittersweet restaurant. 

My sauce wasn't nearly as good as the demi glaze I had at Bittersweet, but it's not altogether bad either. The lamb bits were fried in a stick-able pan purposefully so that it would stick. I aimed to create fond in the pan that would be lifted off with wine and broth and contribute its flavor. Commercial beef stock was added then reduced. The liquid was processed further to mush then strained. The liquid returned to the pan and reduced. The commercial broth condensed to a thick consistency but it also concentrated the salt. This sauce was too salty. Cold unsalted butter added in small chunks to thicken and silk-ify the sauce improved it greatly. I should have used more wine.

Conclusion: Not ready for prime time. Good but not great. Use Atlas to roll pasta to thinner sheets. Use less lamb and more ricotta and spinach for the filling. Look for low-sodium beef broth. Use more wine in sauce.