Homemade Manicotti
Yes, I am giving up the good’s on this one and I know you will appreciate it because this is one of my very favorite secret family recipes…mama Maria’s homemade manicotti! These are the BEST homemade manicotti I have ever had and I know you will love them too. They are a poured pasta and are light and fluffy even with Liuzzi’s homemade whole milk ricotta and mozzarella inside. I use my tomato-basil pasta sauce or my slow cooked pasta sauce 101 for the homemade manicotti. These are really festive and a special dish to make for the holidays. It’s nice to serve a refreshing salad with pasta like my fennel and citrus with tangerine dressing and sides like zucchini torta, roasted beet salad with mint and feta. A light pavlova dessert with fresh pineapple and berries would make the perfect end for this manicotti dinner.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 Tsp salt
- 4 extra large eggs
- 2-3 Tbsp olive oil
- 3 lbs. Liuzzi whole milk ricotta or your favorite
- 5 0z. shredded whole milk, 5 oz. park skim and 5 oz. Scamorza mozzarella mixed together ( can also do 8 oz. whole milk and 8 oz. part skim shedded and mixed)
- 5″ cast iron pan or 5″ non-stick pan
- Baking pan approx. 11″ x 16″
- Recipe for Tomato-Basil Pasta Sauce Recipe or (Tomato-Basil Pasta Sauce VIDEO) (This recipe is a 20-30 minute simmer but for manicotti simmer sauce for 1-2 hours if possible)
DIRECTIONS:
- In a large bowl whisk 1 cup flour, 1/4 Tsp salt with 1 cup water (approx. 20 whisks)
- Add in 1 egg at a time and whisk about 5 whisks per egg
- Put cast iron pan on stove on medium/high heat (a 7 out of an 11)
- Put a couple of Tbsp of olive oil in a bowl with a paper towel
- Rub pan with olive oil-saturated paper towel in between cooking poured pasta batter
- Pour in a ladle of batter into hot pan, approx. 1/4 cup ladle
- Pick up pan and swirl around 3 times and place back down onto stove
- Wait about 25 seconds and flip pasta crepe over, you can use a flexible pastry knife to help you get under it…it will be easy to flip and will not ever be stuck
- You never want the pasta crepe to be golden on the edges-that would be over cooking them…they should look like the photo above light in color
- Immediately flip over onto floured board and flip a couple of times to cool a little
- Repeat dredging saturated paper towel into pan to coat and then pour another 1/4 cup ladle of batter into pan.
- Repeat this over and over until you run out of batter…this amount will make 16 manicotti
- When you are done lay out a work board to roll manicotti’s on
- Put ricotta in a bowl so it’s easy to work with
- Pour about 2 cup of tomato sauce into the baking pan
- Lay out manicotti crepe and scoop 1/4 cup ricotta going across the center of the circle as shown in the photo
- Lay a piece of mozzarella in the center and roll up manicotti
- Place rolled manicotti on top of sauce in pan and continue on until all the pasta crepes are done
- Pour another 2-2 1/2 cups of sauce on top of roll manicotti’s, sprinkle with parmesan and cover with foil
- Place in frig until you are ready to bake
- Or cover with saran and then foil and put into the freezer until your event is near and then pull out two nights before and put into the frig to thaw
- When you are ready to bake your manicotti put into a 350º oven and bake for 45 minutes
- The manicotti will be bubbly when you take it out of the oven and need to rest for 5 minutes before serving