Rotolo Di Spinaci
Rotolo is a lesser-known Italian pasta dish traditional to the region of Tuscany. Everyone is well acquainted with the popular filled pasta dishes such as tortellini and ravioli; very few have heard of rotolo, but with over three hundred different types of pasta and pasta dishes in Italy it’s not that surprising. Nevertheless it is a big pity that it doesn’t have more exposure as it is one of the tastiest, most visually attractive and distinctive of all filled Italian pasta dishes.
Rotolo is essentially thin sheet pasta, spread with a thick mixture of ricotta, spinach, and a line of fried mushrooms and garlic, rolled tightly in a tea towel, tied up with string like a big sausage and poached for twenty minutes in simmering water, sliced attractively then served with a sauce. It is tastiest with a simple sauce made from butter and sautéed sage leaves. There are baked varieties out there as well, where the rotolo is made, cut into individual portions and then baked in a tomato based sauce in the oven: Al forno.
When I opened my first eatery in Jerusalem, ‘Al Dente’, in 1997 the second cookbook my wife bought me as a present was a copy of Rogers and Gray’s Italian Country Cook Book. Rogers and Gray were a breath of fresh air in the culinary world, reinventing the traditions of the Italian kitchen in their own unique, modern and colourful way. Many world renowned chefs including Chef Jamie Oliver were shaped in the kitchen of Rogers and Gray in the Riverside Cafe in London. I can still remember the Italian food served to me as a child when eating in Italian eateries and on cruise ships where everything was an escallop of this or an escallop of that with the same grey/brown sauce and texture, dull in presentation and bereft of colour. These two women changed the international approach to Italian cooking with a cafe and a cookbook. The rotolo recipe was one of the first recipes I tried from their fantastic book, a recipe that ended up on my on specials board in a number of variations and flavours for many years. The Rogers and Gray version of rotolo di spinaci is unusually light in texture, simply ricotta and spinach wrapped in thin pasta and poached.
Rotolo Di Spinaci
Pasta Fresco:
For recipe see my post below.
Filling: Made in two parts
Ingredients:
- Butter x 21 grams
- Small red onion peeled and diced finely
- Small handful fresh marjoram or 2 tablespoons of dry
- Fresh spinach washed and blanched x 500 gram
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Fresh ricotta x 500 gram
- Fresh grated parmesan x 100 gram
- Fresh grated nutmeg to taste (don’t be shy)
- Shluk of olive oil
- Garlic cloves x 2 peeled and sliced fine
- Reconstituted dried porcini mushrooms x 40 gram
- Punnet of portobello mushrooms roughly chopped
Method:
To make filling, heat butter in pan, sauté onion until soft, add marjoram and spinach, also adding a little of the water the spinach was cooked in. Reduce, stir, season and set aside to cool in a bowl.
Reconstitute the porcini by placing in small bowl and pouring very hot water over them. Leave to soak for half an hour before use. Drain porcini, reserving and filtering the porcini liquid to remove dirt particles. Wash the porcini to remove grit or dirt. Heat olive oil in same pan and gently sauté the garlic, add the portobello and cook on a higher heat, add porcini, sauté, add the porcini liquid as needed ensuring the mushrooms stay moist, and cook while stirring for 10-15 minutes. Season and set aside to cool.
Put ricotta in large bowl, break up with fork then add grated parmesan, spinach mixture, grate fresh nutmeg, season with salt and pepper to taste and set aside.
Roll out fresh pasta to a 30 cm x 30 cm square using a rolling pin. Or if you have a pasta machine, roll out two strips on number one, and join them together using a little water brushed on the join and pressing together firmly.
Lay thin pasta square on a clean tea towel and spoon the ricotta mixture. Uusing a metal spatula or large spoon evenly spread the mixture to a thickness of a centimetre leaving a few centimetres clear around the edges. Spoon the mushrooms in a neat line along the edge closest to you. Starting with the mushroom edge, working away from yourself, gently roll up the pasta into a large sausage, then roll up the pasta sausage tightly in the tea towel and secure with string.
Fill a fish poacher or large elongated casserole dish with water, bring to boil, reduce to simmer, add salt to water and place the rotolo gently in the water to poach. It takes about 20 minutes to cook.
Remove from water, leave to cool for ten minutes, cut string, unroll and slice with a very sharp knife into 2 centimetre slices. Arrange four slices on a plate per main serving or one or two for an entree. Spoon some of the butter sage sauce over the rotolo slices. Sprinkle with parmesan.
Sauce:
Heat 100 gram butter (amount depends on how many servings, 100 gram is for four servings) of butter in pan on low heat with a mixture of whole and finely cut sage leaves, season with salt and pepper. Try to crisp the leaves without burning the butter. You can also add a small amount of pink peppercorns for colour and flavour when you sauté the sage.
Buon Appetito!
Next week: two super tasty and simple to make sweet yeast cakes/breads, popular here in Israel for weekend noshing.
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Cheers
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