There’s this great publication that hit the foodie market in the past year. Canal House Cooking is a self-published, thrice-yearly gem (more book than magazine) from two “home cooks writing about home cooking for other home cooks.” These “home cook” authoresses, however, happen to have deep experience in the food and food writing industries (Saveur, Cooks’ Illustrated, Martha Stewart Living – you begin to see why I’d be a natural fan.) Their combination of homeyness and expertise – not to mention the beautiful photography, interesting head notes, and hefty paper stock – makes their publications absolute pleasures to read, and even more enjoyable to cook from. And, I totally want to go spend a day (or a week) with these two – they sound like they really know how to enjoy a day.
Anyway, I received the Spring issue last week and traded any hope of a clean kitchen for the luxury of reading it cover to cover and dog-earing the projects I wanted to try. This recipe was part of their “Pasta Lesson” and seemed perfect for the mini-dinner party that we had planned for Friday (I choose to call one super-fun couple joining us for a dinner in which The Lad and Lass did not partake a party. We certainly imbibed enough for it to count as such.)
I skipped the pasta-making part of this recipe, making what could have been an extremely elaborate project just an elaborate one. But to call it “elaborate” is not to say it is scary – in fact, it was far simpler than I had expected. The components are all very simple, and you can make it ahead and bake it from the freezer. Really, the only thing that makes this a big deal is the number of dishes it creates – well, that, and the wonderfully rich, rustic-looking, but refined-tasting result.
Now that I’ve raved about Canal House, though, a few notes on the recipe: this is definitely an adaptation. The original calls for chicken livers to be included in the meat filling, and I’m sure that the livers do add a lovely richness, if you’re into that. But I can taste livers a mile away, and just cannot abide it, so I left them out – and don’t feel as though we suffered for the omission.
Also, in case you’d want to do a search on the title: Canal House just calls these Cannelloni. My online research for a meat-free version for Husband (who goes meat-free on Fridays like a good Catholic) brought me down a Google-results path of tracts on what distinguishes cannelloni from manicotti, and whether either is truly Italian. And what I learned is that this particular recipe closely resembles the national dish of Catalan, making it quite Spanish.* And, thus, it was particularly serendipitous when our guests, who are wine aficionados, arrived with a spectacular bottle of Spanish red. Salud!
Continue reading “canalons a la catalana” →
add salt to taste 
