Paccheri are short, wide tubes from southern Italy, typically Campania. In order to form each paccheri, I rolled out a piece of dough and cut it into 3- by 2-inch rectangles. Then each piece was rolled over a grooved gnocchi/garganelli board with a 3/4-inch dowel and sealed to form each tube. A bit tedious, but the end result was worth it.
As for the finished dish, each paccheri was par cooked and then piped with a ricotta, mozzarella, spinach filling, then layered in a casserole with tomato sauce and more cheese and then baked in the oven until bubbly hot and gooey. What’s not to like.
Stuffed Paccheri
Ingredients
Cheese-Spinach Filling
- 1 pound ricotta
- 8 ounces fresh mozzerella, grated, divided (reserve about 2 ounces for topping)
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup blanched spinach, squeeze out as much water a possible
- 2 tsp fresh chopped thyme
- pinch red chile flakes
- 1 tsp salt
- zest of 1/2 lemon
- few grinds nutmeg
Tomato Sauce
- 1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
- 3-4 cloves fo garlic, minced
- salt to taste
- red pepper flakes to taste
- pinch of fresh or dried thyme
To Finish the Dish
- 2 ounces fresh Mozzarella
- Freshly grated Parmesan
- Fresh basil leaves
Instructions
- For the Cheese-Spinach filling: Combine all ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until just combined. Transfer to a piping bag.
- For the Tomato Sauce: Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
- To Finish the Dish: Preheat the oven to 350F. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Drop the paccheri and cook until al dente. Cool.Pipe filling into each paccheri tube. Place a layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a heat proof casserole pan. Place the stuffed paccheri on top. Layer some more tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle the grated mozzarella and Parmesan on top. Bake for 25 minutes. You can finish under the broil a minute or two to brown the top. Serve topped with some fresh bail leaves.
Paccheri
Ingredients
- 350 grams 00 flour
- 50 grams finely ground semolina (semola di grano duro rimacinata)
- 4 large eggs
- 2 egg yolk
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Mix the flour (and salt, if using). Place the flour on a dry, clean work surface and form it into a mound. Create a large shallow well in the middle, making sure the walls are high enough to prevent the eggs from escaping. Add the eggs to the well. With a fork, beat the eggs; be careful not to disturb the walls of the flour.
- Once the eggs are well beaten, begin to incorporate the flour walls into the egg mixture. Continue incorporating the flour with the eggs with your fork until you have a shaggy, solid mass. At this point, using your hands, start folding and forming the dough, incorporating the rest of the flour until you have a stiff, solid mass (removing any dry clumps of flour). Knead the dough. Drive the palms of your hand into the dough, pushing the dough forward. Continue, rotating the dough and folding the dough over its self, which helps to incorporate air pockets into the dough. Repeat until the dough is firm and bouncy and has a smooth, silken texture, about 10 minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic and let rest 30 minutes.
- Lightly flour your work surface. Cut off 1/4 of the dough, leaving the rest covered. Flatten the piece of dough with a rolling pin. Next, run the dough through your pasta machine starting with the largest setting (typically ‘0’ or ‘1’). Run it one to two times through each successive pasta roller setting (until #5 on my KitchenAid attachment).
- Cut the sheet into 2-inch by 3-inch pieces. Wrap the dough around a dowel (mine was 3/4-inch wide). Roll to seal. If you want to give it a little texture, roll over a pettine (ridged wooden board). Repeat until you run out of dough. Note: To prevent the paccheri from collapsing while drying, I recommend letting them dry on wooden dowels, something like this.
Notes
Makes about 64 paccheri