Recipe Summary

Difficulty: Medium
Active Time: 2 hours
Start to Finish Time: 3 hours
Yield: 10 servings 

Ingredients 

For cannoli shells
1 cup all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder 
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sweet Marsala wine
1 large egg, separated
About 5 cups vegetable oil

For filling
1 lb fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 oz mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup confectioners sugar (icing sugar)
1 tablespoon minced candied orange peel
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup chocolate drops
2 oz bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped (1/2 cup)

Special equipment: a pasta maker; a 4- to 4 1/4-inch round cookie cutter; a deep-fat thermometer; 6 (roughly 5 5/8- by 5/8-inch) metal cannoli tubes; 2 heavy-duty oven mitts; a pastry bag fitted with a 3/4-inch plain tip
Garnish: confectioners sugar

How to cook  

Make dough for shells:
Whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt. Add 3 to 4 tablespoons oil and blend in with your fingertips until combined. Add wine and yolk and stir until a dough forms.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 5 to 7 minutes. Form dough into a disk and wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then let stand at room temperature 1 hour.

Make filling while dough stands:
Beat together ricotta, mascarpone cheese, confectioners sugar, orange peel, and cinnamon in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed 1 minute (do not overbeat). Fold in chocolate until combined and chill. When it's chilled, add the chocolate drops.

Make shells:
Set smooth rollers of pasta maker at widest setting. Unwrap dough and cut in half, then lightly flour 1 piece (keep remaining half covered with plastic wrap). Flatten floured dough into an oval and feed through rollers. Turn dial down 2 notches and feed dough through rollers again. Continue to feed dough through rollers, making space between rollers narrower by 2 notches each time, until narrowest setting is used.

Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Transfer rolled dough to a lightly floured surface and cut out 4 or 5 rounds with floured cutter. Transfer rounds to baking sheet and keep covered with more plastic wrap. Roll out remaining dough and cut rounds in same manner. Gather scraps and let stand 10 minutes. Roll out scraps and cut in same manner.

Heat 1 1/2 inches oil in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderate heat until it registers 350°F on thermometer.

Meanwhile, lightly oil cannoli tubes. Lightly beat egg white, then brush bottom edge of 1 dough round with egg white. Wrap dough around a tube, overlapping ends (egg-white edge should go on top), then press edges together to seal. Make 5 more shells in same manner (keep remaining rounds covered with plastic).

Fry dough on tubes 1 at a time, turning with metal tongs, until 1 shade darker, about 45 seconds. Wearing oven mitts, clamp end of hot tubes, 1 at a time, with tongs and, holding tube vertically, allow shell to slide off tube onto paper towels, gently shaking tube and wiggling shell as needed to loosen. (If you allow shell to cool it will stick to tube and shatter when you try to remove it.) Transfer shells to paper towels to drain and cool tubes before reusing. Wrap remaining dough around tubes and fry in same manner.

Spoon filling into pastry bag and pipe some into 1 end of a cannoli shell, filling shell halfway, then pipe into other end. Repeat with remaining shells.

Cooks' notes:
• Dough can be made 1 day before frying shells and chilled. Let dough stand at room temperature 1 hour before rolling.
• Shells can be fried 2 days ahead and cooled completely, then kept, layered between paper towels, in an airtight container at room temperature.

Wine Suggestion: a Fresh & Sweet French Apple Cider: a AOC Normandy - Apreval - Cidre de la Cote de Grace-Doux 2003
 

Bon Appetit

Brice

Recipe Summary

Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 45 min.
Cook Time: 10 min.
Yield: 2 servings

This year, Thanksgiving will be on Thursday the 22nd of November. In the United States, Thanksgiving is a four day weekend which usually marks a pause in school and college calendars. Families and friends gather for a reunion, a day of thanks, and a festive meal. Thanksgiving meals are traditionally family events where certain kinds of food are served. First and foremost, turkey is the featured item in most Thanksgiving feasts (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes facetiously referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, turnips, yams and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner. Often guests bring food items or help with cooking in the kitchen as part of a happy, communal meal. This recipe is an original alternative for your traditional roasted turkey recipe.

Ingredients

Ravioli:
1/4 pound ground turkey
2 tablespoons cranberry sauce
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese 
1 tablespoon bread crumbs
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
20 store-bought wonton wrappers

Gravy:
3 tablespoons butter
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon chopped parsley leaves
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Cranberry sauce: 
1 jar (350g) of cranberry in water
1 orange, zest cut into stips and juiced
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick 
Put all ingredients into a saucepan over medium heat and simmer until the cranberries burst and the sauce thickens about 15 to 20 min. Serve at room temperature or cool and refrigerate. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.

How to cook  

Wine Suggestion: a Chilean Light Red Wine: a Biplano - Carmenère 2004 - Central Valley

Bon Appetit

Brice

Difficulty: Relatively easy
Prep Time: 10 min. + time making the broth
Cook Time: Few minutes
Yield: 6 servings