Recipe by Michele De Leo - Images by Giuseppe Aversa
Germaine Stafford talked to chef Michele de Leo.
One of the reasons he became a chef was the influence of mentor and father figure Enrico Cosentino. "Enrico took me under his wing and shared everything
he knew with me, about food and life in the kitchen, all of which set me on the right path to develop a style and philosophy of my own."
The following recipe is about how to make cannelloni at home and fill them with seafood and a tasty sauce.
Ingredients
(serves six people)
For the pasta
400g plain flour; 100g soft wheat Italian pasta flour;
5 eggs; 1 tbsp olive oil; 10g salt.
For the filling
500g fresh red prawns;
2 aubergines;
200g provola (type of smoked mozzarella);
small bunch fresh basil; fresh marjoram, chopped;
salt; olive oil.
For the sauce
200g clams; 200g mussels;
200g Venus clams (tartufi di mare);
100g of ripe cherry tomatoes;
1 clove of garlic.
Preparation
To make the pasta, mix the two types of flour and the salt in a bowl. Add the olive oil and eggs, and mix until the ingredients start to form a ball. Transfer the mixture to a lightly floured surface and knead for 3-5 minutes until the dough becomes smooth. Pass through a pasta machine three or four times then cut into rectangles roughly 15 x 10 cm. (6 x 4 inches). Cook pasta in salted, boiling water for 1-2 minutes, then cool. Meanwhile, cut the aubergines into slices about 2cm thick and sprinkle with salt. Leave for 15 mins, then rinse carefully and dry. Fry the aubergine slices in hot olive oil. Let them drain on some kitchen paper. Then skin and de-vein the prawns and season them with a little olive oil, salt and marjoram. Leave to one side. Slice the provola thinly.
To make the sauce, clean the mussels and clams. Put them in a pan over the heat and cover until they open, tossing lightly from time to time. Remove the shells and put the shellfish and their liquid to one side. In another pan, sautè the oil and garlic. Add the tomatoes, a swirl of olive oil, and the liquid from the shellfish. Boil for a few minutes, then add the shellfish.
To assemble, on each rectangle of pasta place a layer of fried aubergine, then a layer of thinly sliced provola, then some whole fresh basil leaves, then a layer of prawns. Roll up into a sausage shapes, place in a shallow baking dish and cook in a preheated, humid oven for 5-6 minutes at 1600C. (Place an ovenproof dish
of water at the bottom of the oven to ensure pasta stays moist.) Serve the cannelloni on a bed of tomato and shellfish sauce.
