Cookbook Friday: Cappellettis

This is my grandmother, Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe, beaming with what must be her first child, Margaret Ann, in 1942.  The U.S. had been at war with Japan and Germany since the bombing of Pearl Harbor the year before.

Cappellettis are among the top three all-time favorite family recipes, along with crescia and passatellis.  Pronounced “cop-LETS” in the dialect Nonni spoke, these are meat-filled tortellini shaped like little hats (that’s what the name means in Italian) and served in chicken soup.

Nonni still makes these filled pastas by the thousands, despite the rheumatoid arthritis that has permanently bent her fingers.  She freezes them in big bags and sends them home with me (if I play my cards right) or my dad (if I don’t) along with containers of homemade soup.  Her youngest son, Eddie, now in his fifties, has a standing order for shipments of cappellettis and crescia to be sent to him from Connecticut to Washington State several times a year.  Although the prognosis for pork traveling through the U.S. postal system is grim at best, he still lives to tell a happy tale.

 

Cappellettis

I recently revised this recipe (12/10) to make half the filling and double the pasta so you end up with about the right amount of each.  That recipe can be found here.

For the filling:
3 Tbsp. oil
2 lb. ground lean pork
½ cup breadcrumbs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or more)
2 eggs
Pinch of nutmeg
Salt and black pepper to taste

For the dough:
2 cups flour
1 egg (sometimes 2)

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Brown pork until cooked through.  Remove pan from heat and mix in breadcrumbs, cheese, eggs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.  Mixture should be thick enough to hold together.  If too wet, add more breadcrumbs and/or cheese.  Let cool while making dough.

In a large bowl, add flour and make a well in the middle.  Crack egg in the center and stir with a fork, gradually scraping in the flour from the perimeter to incorporate.  When it gets too thick to stir, turn out onto flour board and knead, adding more flour if necessary. Roll into a cylinder and cut into 2-inch pieces.  Put in a lightly oiled bowl and cover to keep from drying out.

Set up pasta machine with rollers open to the widest setting.  Run one piece of pasta through the machine.  Decrease the number by one and run the pasta through again.  Continue decreasing the space between rollers until the pasta is so thin, you can almost see your fingers through it.

Working quickly, place rolled-out pasta on lightly floured surface and cut into 1½-inch squares using a sharp knife.  Place one teaspoon of filling in the center of a square and fold into a triangle, corner to corner, pressing on the edges to seal.  Bring the two pointy corners toward each other, overlapping slightly, and press to join.  They should sit flat like the little hats they are.  Lay them in a single layer on a rimmed cookie sheet and cover while filling the rest of the pasta squares.  Repeat until all the pasta is used, freezing the pans of completed cappellettis as soon as they are filled.  Once the pasta has frozen, you can transfer them to plastic freezer bags.  Any remaining filling can be stored in the freezer for future use.

To serve, bring homemade chicken soup to a boil.  Add frozen cappellettis (don’t defrost them), stirring occasionally.  Let soup come back up to a boil, then turn down heat to a gentle simmer.  Cook until al dente (fully cooked but still firm) about 7 minutes. 

Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe
New Haven, Connecticut
1918 –

Nonni's freshly made cappellettis.  Photo by Trish Barker.

Next Recipe: Italian Pie Crust

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Comments

[Lisa]

Oh c'mon!! I want Nonni Donroe to be my grandma too! Is there such a thing as adopting a grand child? Do you think she'd be up for that? I would color her TONS of pictures with my own crayons! She could cover her fridge in no time! Also.. tell her, when I spill my glass of milk, I ALWAYS clean it up myself. So there's that.

'kay go ask her..

[Susan from Food "Blogga"]

Ah, I adore Nonni recipes, and your photos are fantastic! My Nonni (Nan)used to make the most delectable tortellini, though they were usually cheese-filled, as that was the preference among the family. Nan kept the US postal service in business when she used to send care packages from RI to her son in CA. I'm so glad you visited my blog because now I discovered yours; it's a gem!

[Tammy]

Susan: Thanks for stopping by! Must be all of the Italian grandmothers keeping the postal service in business.

Lisa: I think Nonni would LOVE to adopt another grandchild. It's the other grandchildren that might not be so keen on sharing.

[MJB]

Thank you so much for the cappellettis recipe. My aunt married into a large Italian family. When I was a child (I'm 60 now) my family always visited my aunt's in-laws for Thanksgiving. Cappellettis were the first dish served every year!!! oh the memories! However, the recipe was a secret and passed down to only one daughter. Their whole family still gathers every year to make the cappellettis, but the recipe remains a secret! I didn't even know how to spell the word until I saw it in a facebook message for their family gathering this year. I am so excited about having your Nonni's recipe to try for my family. I guess I will have to invest in a good pasta machine! LOL

[Isaac]

I like it!