Ingredients for Cannelloni

Series Summary

Cannelloni is a type of pasta which is stuffed and often baked in a sauce. Unlike manicotti, which is a pre-shaped pasta tube, cannelloni is made from wrapped pasta sheets. The dish was invented in 1907 by chef Salvatore Coletta of the La Favorita restaurant, also know as the 'O Parrucchiano in Sorrento, Italy. Cannelloni can also be made with crepes rather than pasta sheets, and the savory filling is often made from ricotta cheese, spinach, and may include veal, Italian sausage, or other meats.

In this series of free cooking videos, you'll learn how to prepare a classic Italian recipe cannelloni. Chef Brandon Sarkis will demonstrate step-by-step, in easy-to-follow instructions what ingredients, cookware and supplies you'll need to cook the dish, how to prepare the ingredients, like chopping the onion, garlic and tomatoes for the sauce, how to make the cheese stuffing, and offers tip on how to fill the pasta tubes.

Video Transcript

"Hi . My name is Brandon Sarkis on behalf of Expert Village. Today, I'm going to show you a really nice, quick, easy way to make cannelloni. Alright let me go through my ingredients. We're going to need for today's cannelloni recipe. First things first. One yellow onion. I use sweet onions for this recipe, I use sweet onions for a lot of my recipes. Yellow onion doesn't have to be sweet, but that is what I recommend. You're also going to need eight cloves of garlic. This is the real stuff, I recommend the real stuff over the stuff in the jar. The stuff in the jar doesn't pack the same amount of punch and also it comes off really sweet and doesn't have that same pungent garlicky thing and also it's really hard to brown off the stuff in the jar too, so. We also have two tablespoons of olive oil we're going to use to cook with. I've also got one pound of ricotta cheese. This is actually part skim ricotta. It doesn't matter. You can use the whole stuff or the part skim stuff. It's available in your grocery store usually near the cream cheese or like the butter and yogurt and stuff. Over here I've got several pasta tubes. Now those of you with a discerning eye will say "Hey Brandon those are manicotti tubes. Cannelloni are sheets that you roll up." I'm showing you an easy way to make this. Cannelloni by definition is pretty much the same thing it's just that cannelloni is done with little sheets that you roll up and these are already pre formed tubes but this really is an easier way to go. And also finding the sheets in your grocery store is always kind of an inconsistent deal. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Let's see. I've also got two tablespoons of grated Parmesan. This isn't the stuff in the green can you get at the grocery store. This is the real deal. I saved you the hassle of watching me grate it though cause I just used an electric grater to grate it. I've also got about an ounce of butter. So we're going to use this to butter our pan so it's not too important that it is an exact measurement. Just something in a stick form you can use to butter a pan with. Let's see. I've got twenty eight ounces of whole peeled tomatoes. These did come out of a can and the reason why is that I'm showing you a quick and easy way to make this recipe, not the way that your great grandma from Sicily made it. So we're going to use canned tomatoes for this one, which a lot of your favorite restaurants out there use canned tomatoes. I hate to be the one to break it to you. And we're also going to use canned tomato sauce. This isn't like any of the brand name pasta sauces. This is basically just pureed tomatoes and water. You can make it yourself. It's not tomato juice though. It's thicker. You can see it's almost like really runny ketchup. But all this is is tomatoes and water. Right here the ubiquitous salt and pepper. So with that lets go ahead and go through all the equipment we're going to need for today and get rolling on our cannelloni."