Ciao a tutti! Before I get into the finer details of this week’s Glorious Recipe, I’d just like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone for all of your lovely comments, messages and chats since I began this series of blog posts. You’ve made an honorary Italian very happy!
Following our previous post about Nettle Risotto, quite a few of you who’ve enjoyed our foraging recipes so far got in touch to ask if we had a recipe with dandelions. Today I’d like to share something that many of you may not have attempted to make before – our recipe for panzerotti with ricotta and dandelion leaves.
I should stress that this is not the traditional recipe for panzerotti, however the final result is still a delicious snack. If you would prefer to make panzerotti the traditional way, please take a look at this lovely blog post from Giordano!
Panzerotti are wonderous, doughy pockets of loveliness, stuffed with a delicious filling and then baked or fried. They originate from Puglia in southern Italy, a place that’s been on my Italian holiday list for YEARS. One day I will go and visit the trulli!
The word for dandelion in Italian is “dente di leone” which means “lion’s tooth”. The original Medieval Latin name of dens leonis comes from the tooth-like appearance of the dandelion leaves, which makes perfect sense when you look at their jagged outline.
For the main element of our panzerotto filling, I headed back to Lymefield, just a couple of minutes from our house in Broadbottom, Greater Manchester, to pick some dandelion leaves.
With the help of Giordano’s dad, I spent around an hour picking the biggest dandelion leaves I could find. Spring is the best time for picking, and I was very lucky – lots of the leaves I found were huge!
I picked a lot of dandelion leaves, so many that we had to wash them in stages when we got back home!
How To Make Panzerotti: A Step-By-Step Guide
To make 8 of your own panzerotti, you will need:
- 500g ricotta cheese
- 250g cooked dandelion leaves
- 150g grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
- 3 whole eggs – 2 for the filling, 1 beaten egg for the egg wash
- 1 garlic clove
- Nutmeg
- Olive oil
- Pinch of salt
- Pinch of pepper
- To cook your washed dandelion leaves, blanch them in just-boiled water for a few minutes, then drain them.
- Pre-heat your oven to 180° (Gas Mark 4) and begin prepping!
- Fry a little olive oil on a low heat in a large frying pan, together with one large garlic clove, for a couple of minutes.
- In the meantime, dice your dandelion leaves. This is about breaking the larger leaves up, rather than finely chopping the mix, so you should have some nice chunks of cooked leaves once you’re done.
- Add the leaves to the frying pan….
- …add a little salt and pepper…
- …and sauté the leaves on a low heat. After around 3 minutes, turn the heat off under the frying pan and remove the garlic clove. Leave to one side for a few minutes.
- Add the ricotta to a mixing bowl, followed by half of the grated cheese and the nutmeg, and mix thoroughly.
- Add the sautéed dandelion leaves, followed by two of the eggs, and slowly continue mixing.
- Add the other half of the cheese and keep on stirring!
- Once your filling is evenly mixed, leave to one side and begin to prepare your puff pastry. This is the trickiest bit of the process, so I have a couple of tips for you!
- Firstly, it’s best to leave your puff pastry in the fridge until it’s time to make the panzerotti – pastry sheets that are not chilled properly are more difficult to fold and are more liable to split.
- Secondly, cutting your pastry sheets first will also avoid them splitting open as they cook. We used two full pastry sheets and cut each sheet evenly into four strips, so this gave us 8 panzerotti in total.
- Once you’ve cut the pastry sheets, spoon the filling on to the top of each sheet of pastry. Make sure you leave enough space at the bottom of each sheet to fold the pastry over, like this:
- Fold the pastry sheets over the top of the mix to make a little parcel. Seal each parcel all the way round with a fork, and lightly pierce them at the top to ensure they will cook evenly. The end result should look a bit like this:
- Use your final egg to brush an egg wash over the parcels and place them carefully on to a lined baking tray.
- Cook at 180° (Gas Mark 4) for around 30 minutes until flaky and golden brown.
These panzerotti are so tasty that they can be enjoyed hot or cold! Let me know how you get on and I’ll see you next time for another Glorious Recipe!
Take care, a presto!
Laura