How to Make Cannoli with Baccala
Jean Tang: There's a celebrated Italian holiday tradition called the Feast of the
Seven Fishes. That’s seven different fishes in one meal. We’re at
an Italian restaurant called San Domenico and they’re going to
show us one of the dishes that’s part of their feast. It’s a cannoli
with baccala.
So we’re in San Domenico’s kitchen. I’m standing here with
Executive Chef, Odette Fada.
Odette Fada: We have baccala here. Baccala is a salted codfish from Italy and
it's being soaked in water overnight. We cut it in smaller pieces.
We put it in a stock pot. I cut them smaller, so it will take the same
amount of time as the baccala to cook. We add our potatoes, a little
bit of oil. Maybe we want to keep a low flame.
Jean Tang: Now, we’re making the dough.
Odette Fada: The dough, yes. This is polenta flour. So we mix like 1/3 of
polenta flour and 2/3 of the – I use double zero Italian flour. It’s a
finer – the double zero, it means that it's very fine round flour. You
want to mix it. I found that putting some Parmigiano-Reggiano it
will give some nice taste. And now we put the eggs. I will add a
little bit of salt but not too much because the cheese already have
some salt. We then put a little bit of olive oil. And I start mixing
the dough from inside, breaking the eggs and getting little flour at
the time.
Jean Tang: So look at how easy you’re making that. Look, it’s incredible.
Odette Fada: Okay, you see that it’s getting to the right consistency. You have to
work it until it’s nice and smooth and you don’t want anything to
be specked on your hand. You see that now we have a nice dough
that we can roll up very easily. We will wrap this in plastic and we
let it rest for like half an hour so that the flour will get the humidity
of the eggs and it will be much smoother to roll the dough.
You see that it’s now getting there. The fish is cooked. The
potatoes, let's check the potatoes. I tried to squeeze them, squashed
them against the wall of the pot. So we can take it off. We can put
that in the food processor. I drained it.
Jean Tang: And you’re straining out the milk.
Odette Fada: Yes, because in the milk, if the baccala was still too salty, all the
salt will go in the milk. We want to add a little bit of oil. So now
we take the baccala out of the food processor. Now, we have to roll
out our cannoli. The dough, the pasta machine, and we just roll it
out.
Jean Tang: Now what setting do you have that? You have it on?
Odette Fada: Right now, the first time I do it very thick and then I try to go as
thin as I can little by little because now it’s really thin.
Jean Tang: You can see through it. It comes like a piece of silk.
Odette Fada: Yes. And we want to just cut it, cut the edges and we have to roll it
up on the cannoli mold. And you just—yes, exactly, so that it will
stick.
Jean Tang: But if people don’t have this, they can still make it, right?
Odette Fada: I will give you a hint. These, we buy this but you can use the
handle of the broom.
Jean Tang: Oh, you can use a broom handle. But that would be—
Odette Fada: Yes. And you have to cut it.
And you want to check. See?
Jean Tang: Wow. That was pretty good.
Odette Fada: That was fast. That’s it.
Jean Tang: Got it.
Odette Fada: You just pull it out. Now, I have some long ones. I have some
short ones.
Jean Tang: You make a tight little bundle.
Odette Fada: And we want to use the big one and the small one.
Jean Tang: Look at that, very cool.
Odette Fada: I finished right here. I want to fill it up nicely or the small one I put
my two fingers right here so I will stuff the baccala right, and it's
just finished.
Jean Tang: Wow. It’s such a burst of fish and salt and the flavor and a crunch.
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