Sharing a recipe on how to prepare cappellacci rossi is a tricky job to do. Mostly because of the language issues. The Italian cook who shared this recipe with me called the basic ingredient rapa rossa. Dictionary translates it to the English beetroot BUT when you translate it back to Italian the dictionary says it’s barbabietola rossa. In order to avoid misunderstanding I’m pasting below a photo of this vegetable and call it as you want!
Beetroots
This recipe was given to me while I was assisting an Italian cook in his preparations therefore all quantities are proximate. He was preparing huge amount of food designed for the whole bunch of hungry people rather than for a small family. And of course just like all professional cooks: he has never used any sort of a scale! I saw the famous Italian quanto basta (“to taste”) in practice.
Ingredients to prepare pasta:
- 6 eggs
- 600g of flour
- a cup of grind beetroots
Ingredients to prepare filling:
- 4 patched beetroots
- 300g of ricotta (sort of the Italian white cheese)
- 100g of parmiggiano (sort of the Italian cheese)
- salt
- pepper
The way you prepare pasta is similar to the one published already here. The only difference is that when the pastry is almost done you add a little quantity of the beetroots. You need to grind it carefully in order to get a smooth pasta.
Cappellacci rossi
Red filling
The trick to prepare filling is finding a good proportion between ricotta and beetroots. When I was observing the cook he was adding ricotta fervently. The cheese added to his cappellacci was produced by the farm located within agriturismo. I filmed a few short clips on how to prepare cappellacci but I still need to work on it before it’s published.
The final effect of this dish was also strengthened by the way of serving it. The final touch was up to the poppy seeds mixed with small amount of mascarpone and sweet cream. Exquisite dish!
Cappellacci rossi
Credits: photo of beetroots was downloaded from Flickr on the Creative Commons license, author of this photo is Marj Joly.
