Italian Tuscan Ricotta and Spinach Cannelloni | Cannelloni Ricotta e Spinaci Rivisitati Gratinati al Pecorino Toscano

Sep 22

11 min read

Cannelloni Ricotta e Spinaci Rivisitati Gratinati al Pecorino Toscano (Italian Tuscan Ricotta and Spinach Cannelloni)

Cannelloni are usually treated as the most forgiving thing in the Italian oven, a tube stuffed with whatever the refrigerator holds and buried under enough sauce to hide any error. This Tuscan version refuses that logic. The pasta is rolled by hand, the filling is ricotta and spinach and nothing that would dilute them, and the gratin is aged Pecorino Toscano rather than the Parmigiano the rest of Italy reaches for. Every element is meant to be tasted separately, so every element has to be correct.

What makes the dish Tuscan is the cheese and the restraint. Pecorino Toscano is gentler and sweeter than the aggressive pecorini of Lazio and Sardinia, and aged a few months it melts rather than seizes, browning into a thin savoury crust. The besciamella underneath is deliberately light, and the tomato is reduced to a whisper: a shallow film on the base so the pasta never sticks and never swims.

Yield: 4 servings, 12 cannelloni. Prep: 1 hour. Rest: 30 minutes. Bake: 25 minutes. Total: about 2 hours. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo. Region: Tuscany.

The Story

Cannelloni are younger than they look. The rolled and filled tube in its modern form is credited to Nicola Federico, a Sorrentine cook of the early twentieth century, and it spread fast because it solved a restaurant problem: lasagne must be cut into a slab that falls apart, while cannelloni arrive portioned and intact. Tuscany adopted the format but not the Neapolitan filling. Where the south used meat and mozzarella, the Tuscan kitchen already had ricotta and wild spinach from its own tradition of filled pasta.

That tradition runs through the whole region. In the Casentino and the Mugello, the same ricotta and spinach mixture is cooked without any pasta around it and called gnudi, literally naked, which tells you the filling came first and the wrapper second. Sheep milk ricotta, cooked greens, nutmeg and grated cheese predate cannelloni by centuries, and when the tube arrived from Campania the Tuscans simply poured their existing filling into it.

The Pecorino Toscano is the part that will not travel. It carries a protected designation and is made from Maremma to the Val d'Orcia, historically by shepherds who moved flocks between the coastal plains in winter and the hills in summer. Tuscan cooks grate the aged wheels the way Emilians grate Parmigiano, and in a gratin its fat browns faster and cooler than cow milk cheese, which is why the crust here forms in twenty minutes rather than forty.

Ingredients

For the pasta sheets

Italian 00 flour, 1 3/4 cups (220 g)
Durum wheat semola rimacinata, 1/4 cup (40 g)
Whole eggs, large, 3
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp (5 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)

For the ricotta and spinach filling

Sheep milk ricotta, drained overnight, 1 lb 2 oz (500 g)
Fresh spinach leaves, 1 lb 5 oz (600 g), about 9 oz (250 g) once cooked and squeezed
Aged Pecorino Toscano, finely grated, 2 oz (55 g)
Egg yolk, large, 1
Freshly grated nutmeg, 1/4 tsp (0.5 g)
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1/2 lemon
Fine sea salt, 3/4 tsp (4.5 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the besciamella

Whole milk, 2 1/2 cups (600 ml)
Unsalted butter, 3 tbsp (45 g)
Italian 00 flour, 1/3 cup (40 g)
Bay leaf, 1
Freshly grated nutmeg, 1/8 tsp (0.25 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)

For the tomato base

Canned San Marzano tomatoes, passed through a food mill, 1 cup (240 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Garlic clove, whole and lightly crushed, 1
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)

For finishing

Aged Pecorino Toscano, finely grated, 2 1/2 oz (70 g)
Unsalted butter, cold and diced, 1 tbsp (15 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, for the baking dish

Preparation

Step 1

Mix and rest the dough. Mound the 00 flour and the semola, make a well, break in the eggs and add the oil and salt. Draw the flour in with a fork until a shaggy mass forms, then knead on an unfloured surface for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Wrap and rest it at room temperature for 30 minutes. Without that rest the gluten stays tense and the sheets spring back as you roll them.

Step 2

Cook and dry the spinach. Cook the washed leaves in a wide pan over high heat with only the water clinging to them, 2 to 3 minutes, until they collapse. Drain, cool under cold water to hold the colour, then squeeze in a towel harder than feels reasonable until you have 9 oz (250 g) of dense dry spinach. Chop it finely by hand. A food processor makes a wet puree that bleeds into the ricotta and leaves the filling grey.

Step 3

Build the filling. Beat the drained ricotta smooth, then fold in the spinach, the grated Pecorino Toscano, the egg yolk, nutmeg, lemon zest, salt and pepper, working only until homogeneous. Season it properly now: this is the last moment you can correct it, and a filling that tastes right raw will taste flat once pasta and besciamella dilute it. Refrigerate it while you roll, so it firms and pipes cleanly.

Step 4

Roll and cut the sheets. Cut the dough into four pieces, keeping the others covered, and roll each through a pasta machine one notch at a time down to about 1/32 inch (0.8 mm). The sheet should be thin enough to read a hand through and still hold its shape when lifted. Cut rectangles of roughly 5 by 4 inches (13 by 10 cm) onto a floured cloth.

Step 5

Blanch the rectangles. Bring a wide pot to a rolling boil and salt it with 1 1/2 tbsp (25 g) of coarse salt per 4 quarts (4 litres). Boil two or three rectangles at a time for 45 seconds only, lift them into iced water, then lay them flat on a damp towel without overlapping. Fresh pasta finishes cooking in the oven, so this blanch seasons the sheet and sets its surface rather than cooking it.

Step 6

Make the besciamella and the tomato base. Warm the milk with the bay leaf, melt the butter, whisk in the flour and cook the roux over medium low heat for 2 minutes, until it smells of biscuit but takes no colour. Add the hot milk in three additions, whisking hard, simmer 6 to 8 minutes with nutmeg and salt, and stop while it ribbons off the whisk. Separately soften the garlic in the oil, discard it, add the tomatoes and salt and simmer 8 minutes.

Step 7

Fill, roll and assemble. Pipe a finger thick line of filling along the short edge of each dried rectangle and roll it into a tube, seam underneath, about 1 1/2 tbsp (35 g) each. Spread the tomato base over an oiled dish of about 12 by 8 inches (30 by 20 cm), add a quarter of the besciamella and set the tubes in a single layer with a small gap between them. Pour over the rest, covering the open ends, which otherwise dry into hard lips.

Step 8

Gratin and rest. Scatter the finishing Pecorino Toscano evenly and dot with the cold diced butter. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes, then move the dish to the upper third for 5 more, until the crust is blistered and deep gold in patches. Rest 10 minutes before serving, which lets the besciamella set just enough for the cannelloni to lift out whole rather than collapse on the spatula.

Plating

Serve this hot and on warm plates, the opposite of most modern restaurant advice and entirely correct here. Besciamella stiffens as it cools and sheep milk fat sets firm, so a cold plate turns a supple gratin into something that drags on the fork. Warm the plates to around 140°F (60°C) and no hotter, since more keeps cooking the sauce.

Lift the cannelloni with a wide offset spatula rather than tongs, one at a time, with a little of the tomato base from underneath. Three tubes is a generous primo. Set them parallel and slightly apart, gratin side up, and spoon over only the sauce that came with them. Finish with a very little grated Pecorino and a grind of pepper, and nothing green: basil belongs to another region and parsley adds a raw note the dish has spent two hours avoiding.

Professional Technique

The governing technique is moisture accounting across three wet components. Ricotta, spinach and besciamella each carry water, and the pasta tube is all that stands between them and a flooded dish. Draining the ricotta overnight removes 3 to 4 tbsp (45 to 60 ml) of whey from a pound, and squeezing the spinach removes considerably more. Those two steps are what let the besciamella stay pourable, since it no longer has to compensate for liquid released in the oven.

The second is the 45 second blanch. Commercial dried tubes are made to be filled raw and hydrated by the sauce, which is why they so often bake chalky. A fresh sheet behaves differently: 45 seconds in salted boiling water gelatinises the surface starch and seasons the pasta from within, while leaving enough dry starch in the core to absorb besciamella. Boil it two full minutes and it reaches assembly already cooked, then turns to paste.

The third is the gratin, which turns on the difference between sheep and cow milk fat. Pecorino Toscano has a lower melting point and more free fat than Parmigiano Reggiano, so it browns sooner and breaks into oil if held too long. Hence a short bake with only the last 5 minutes near the top of the oven, and the cold diced butter, which melts first and carries the cheese into an even film before browning begins.

Texture and Moisture Control

The finished cannellone should give under a fork without resistance and still hold its shape. That comes down to the besciamella: loose enough to ribbon off a whisk when hot, so it flows around the tubes and coats their open ends, and firm enough to set to a soft custard once rested. Cooked to the thickness of paste it cannot move in the oven, leaves dry pockets between the tubes, and bakes into a skin.

Inside, the filling should stay creamy and faintly granular rather than smooth and wet. The single egg yolk binds it, setting between 149°F and 158°F (65°C and 70°C) so the tube cuts cleanly. A whole egg brings extra water and albumen and tightens into something rubbery; no egg at all leaves a filling that slumps out the moment it is cut.

The last variable is the 10 minute rest. Straight from the heat the dish sits near 195°F (90°C), the besciamella starch is fully hydrated and mobile, and the sauce runs off the tubes and pools. Ten minutes brings it to roughly 165°F (74°C), where it clings without cooling. Past fifteen the gratin fat starts to solidify, which is what turns a good tray into a greasy one.

Professional Mise en Place

Almost everything here can be staged in advance. The only genuine last moment work is the gratin and the rest.

Equipment and tools

Pasta machine or long rolling pin, plus a sharp wheel cutter
Fine sieve and muslin for the ricotta, clean towel for the spinach
Heavy saucepan and balloon whisk for the besciamella
Piping bag with a wide plain tip, offset spatula for serving
Baking dish of about 12 by 8 inches (30 by 20 cm), earthenware or enamelled iron

Prepared ahead

Ricotta draining in the refrigerator, up to 24 hours ahead
Pasta dough made and rested, up to 1 day ahead, wrapped and cold
Spinach cooked, squeezed and chopped, up to 1 day ahead
Filling mixed and piped into a bag, up to 12 hours ahead
Tomato base cooked and cooled, up to 3 days ahead

Service setup

Besciamella warm over a low bain marie, film touching the surface
Cannelloni rolled into the dish, unsauced, held cold up to 6 hours
Pecorino grated fresh, butter diced and kept cold until it goes on
Oven fully up to 400°F (200°C), rack set in the upper third
Plates warming, wide spatula and a timer for the rest

Chef Tips

Buy sheep milk ricotta if you can, and taste it first. Tuscan ricotta di pecora is sweeter and denser than the cow milk version and echoes the Pecorino on top instead of arguing with it. If only cow milk ricotta is available, drain it longer.

Grate the Pecorino Toscano yourself from a wedge with its rind. Pre grated sheep cheese is dried out and dusted with anticaking starch, which stops it melting into a film and leaves a powder that browns unevenly.

Assemble with the besciamella hot rather than cold. Hot sauce flows into every gap and around the open ends, while sauce from the refrigerator sits in lumps and leaves the pasta beneath it dry. If it has set, warm it gently with a splash of hot milk.

To feed more people, build two shallow dishes rather than one deep one. Stacked in two layers the cannelloni trap steam and the lower layer finishes waterlogged while the upper one browns. A single layer with a gap between the tubes is the point of this format.

Common Mistakes

Using wet ricotta straight from the tub. Undrained ricotta releases whey in the oven and the dish arrives swimming, the besciamella broken and thin. Drain it overnight in a sieve and discard what collects.

Squeezing the spinach half heartedly. Cooked spinach holds an astonishing amount of water and every drop ends up in the filling. Wring it in a towel until nothing more comes out, then weigh it: 9 oz (250 g).

Boiling the pasta sheets too long. At two minutes the sheet is already cooked and turns to paste under 25 minutes of baking. Forty five seconds and straight into iced water is all it needs.

Overfilling the tubes. A cannellone packed tight splits along its seam as the filling expands, and the dish becomes a tray of ricotta with pasta floating in it. About 1 1/2 tbsp (35 g) each.

Making the besciamella too thick. A paste cannot flow around the tubes or cover their ends, so the pasta dries into hard rims and the sauce bakes into a skin. Stop while it ribbons off the whisk.

Baking longer to get colour. Pecorino Toscano browns fast and then breaks into oil. If the top is pale at 20 minutes, move the dish closer to the heat for 5 rather than extending the bake.

Wine Pairing

Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG: The most precise match on the list and a Tuscan white with enough structure to matter. Its firm acidity cuts through the butter and the sheep milk fat without stripping them, and the bitter almond note it finishes on picks up the toasted edge of the Pecorino crust. There is body enough to sit alongside the ricotta rather than vanish under it, which is where lighter whites fail.

Chianti Rufina DOCG: Grown at altitude northeast of Florence, this is the most nervous and mineral of the Chianti family, and that restraint is what makes it work against a white gratin. Its tannin is fine grained rather than gripping, so it does not clash with the dairy, while the sour cherry fruit and the iron note beneath answer the tomato base.

Carmignano DOCG: The small appellation west of Florence where Sangiovese is blended with Cabernet, giving a rounder and slightly darker profile than straight Chianti. That extra flesh handles the richness of a besciamella gratin comfortably, and the faintly tobacco edge the Cabernet brings runs alongside the nutmeg in the filling instead of covering it.

Rosso di Montalcino DOC: Sangiovese from the Montalcino hills released young, with the aromatic depth of the area and none of the weight or oak of its older sibling. Serve it at around 61°F (16°C). Its bright acidity resets the palate between forkfuls of a deliberately rich dish, and its sweet red fruit throws the salt of the aged Pecorino into relief.

Storage & Reheating

Baked cannelloni keep refrigerated for up to 3 days, covered tightly once completely cold. Never cover the dish while it is still warm: trapped steam condenses on the film and drips back onto the gratin, softening the crust and thinning the besciamella. Cool it on a rack first, then seal it.

Reheat at 325°F (165°C), covered with foil for 15 minutes and uncovered for a final 5 to 8 to bring the crust back. About 2 tbsp (30 ml) of milk spooned around the edges beforehand replaces the moisture lost in the first bake. Avoid the microwave: it heats the filling faster than the pasta, so the ricotta weeps while the tube stays cold.

The dish freezes well but only unbaked. Assemble it fully, sauce and cheese included, wrap it twice and freeze for up to 2 months. Bake from frozen at 350°F (175°C) for 50 minutes covered, then uncovered at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes. Never freeze it once baked: the besciamella splits on thawing and the pasta turns soft.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 servings of 3 cannelloni each:

Calories: 720 kcal
Total Fat: 38 g
Saturated Fat: 21 g
Trans Fat: 0.8 g
Unsaturated Fat: 15 g
Cholesterol: 245 mg
Sodium: 980 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 60 g
Fiber: 5 g
Total Sugars: 11 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 35 g
Lactose: 7 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, vitamin A, vitamin K, folate, iron, phosphorus, riboflavin