What to do with pennoni

jos28

Hi everyone,
I brought this back from holidays in Italy last week. Its like giant size penne pasta. I used it this week and made a mess of it. I mixed chopped cooked chicken fillets with cream cheese, sundried tomatoes and spinach. I stuffed the pasta with this mixture. I put them into a lasagne dish and covered with passata. I cooked for about 40 mins at 190. The pasta was still hard, so I left it in the oven for another while. I ended up with a dried up dinner and the pasta was still was not completely cooked.
Any other ideas anyone?

Minder

Hope this isn't teaching your granny to suck eggs. Cook it first in boiling salted water until al dente. Drain and run cold water over it. Proceed as before.

Other stuffings include spinach with pinenuts and cream cheese. For sauces over the top, try bechamel and tomato before baking in the oven.

antoniosicily

For God's sake, never *EVER* put cold water on pasta just drained, otherwise you will lose the starch and you can't "attach" any sauce

With Pennoni I would use a simple tomato sauce or a simple ragu' (which here seems to be called 'bolognaise')

jos28

Minder wrote: »

Cook it first in boiling salted water until al dente. Drain and run cold water over it.

So thats where I went wrong ! I did think of cooking it first but was wondering how to stuff cooked pasta. Al dente...now I know.
Thanks both of you. Sauces and stuffings sound delicious.

Minder

antoniosicily wrote: »

For God's sake, never *EVER* put cold water on pasta just drained, otherwise you will lose the starch and you can't "attach" any sauce

With Pennoni I would use a simple tomato sauce or a simple ragu' (which here seems to be called 'bolognaise')

Whats god got to do with it? Maybe you could tell the OP how to stuff just drained pasta - asbestos gloves perhaps?

The Sweeper

antoniosicily wrote: »

For God's sake, never *EVER* put cold water on pasta just drained, otherwise you will lose the starch and you can't "attach" any sauce

...and then the world will end.

The OP already used passata and it still didn't cook.

OP, cooking with uncooked dried pasta you need a lot of liquid in your sauce to ensure it cooks in the oven. I use raw lasagne sheets for instance, but they're totally submerged in quite a lot of liquid - meat sauce, cheese sauce and so on. They're also thin and I'd imagine possibly thinner than the Pennoni.

Either cook the pennoni and stuff when cooked (it's up to you how you cool your pasta. If you leave it to cool on its own it will stick together and the pieces will tear. You could possibly oil the hot cooked pasta and let that cool, lest the starch gods be offended and strike you down?) or, as antoniosicily says, you'll have to make a different, more watery stuffing, which isn't quite what you wanted to do.

xxdilemmaxx

[QUOTE=Minesajackdaniels;55823608
You could possibly oil the hot cooked pasta and let that cool, lest the starch gods be offended and strike you down[/QUOTE]

antoniosicily

Minder wrote: »

Whats god got to do with it? Maybe you could tell the OP how to stuff just drained pasta - asbestos gloves perhaps?

Fork and spoon.

To cook half-cooked pasta in the oven use a more watery sauce and/or wrap the tray with tinfoil for twenty minutes and let it cook without tinfoil for the other twenty minutes

Minder

antoniosicily wrote: »

Fork and spoon.

...and how do you prevent it glueing itself together?

OP, I have found that dried pasta does indeed need a wet sauce to cook the pasta in the oven. This is not always possible when stuffing with spinach for example.

I have yet to have a problem with rinsed pasta, all blessings be upon the starch gods. But being Irish, I am not an expert.:D

antoniosicily

Minder wrote: »

...and how do you prevent it glueing itself together?

OP, I have found that dried pasta does indeed need a wet sauce to cook the pasta in the oven. This is not always possible when stuffing with spinach for example.

I have yet to have a problem with rinsed pasta, all blessings be upon the starch gods. But being Irish, I am not an expert.:D

Ok now I got what you meant; to stuff that pasta you have to wait until it is cool; in italy we actually stuff egg pasta like cannelloni and so on, pennoni aren't suitable, IMHO.