Balsamic

Cappelletti with Crema di Radicchio

Looking for a unique and beautifully presented pasta for Christmas dinner? Try these cappelletti with crema di radicchio.

It’s a gorgeous dish that is going to impress your guests, and the best part is that it takes you under 30 minutes to make it. You will spend most of the time plating it, but not too long.

Be aware, radicchio is leaf chicory, which is known for being very bitter. If you don’t like bitter food, you might want to switch radicchio for rucola.

On the other hand, if you love bitter flavours, you’ll appreciate this recipe. Very rarely you find recipes trying to play with bitter ingredients, because most of us prefer sweet, salty and sour. That’s exactly what we are doing with this recipe – celebrating radicchio, a gorgeous vegetable with a bitter taste.

Ingredients (for 10 small portions, perfect for a Holiday dinner)

Cappelletti with prosciutto – pack of 400 gr
2 small radicchio or leaf chicory (1 for pesto and 1 for presentation)
2 cloves garlic
Belmorso extra virgin olive oil
150 gr pecorino Romano cheese
12 walnuts
Platinum Balsamic Vinegar of Modena IGP
Honey or apple puree

Preparation

The night before you are making the pasta, take one radicchio and separate all the leaves. Wash them and immerse them into a bowl with cold water. You can leave the bowl in the fridge overnight.

The next day, take the bowl, drain the water, rinse the radicchio leaves and start chopping them. Only chop the dark parts and discard the white part, especially the harder bit towards the inside of the leaf.

Peel and cut the garlic cloves into two parts.

Throw everything into the bowl of your mixer, add 7 tablespoons Belmorso extra virgin olive oil, add the walnuts, and 50 gr grated pecorino cheese.

Next, add 2 tablespoons Platinum balsamic vinegar and 2 teaspoons high quality organic honey.

Blend everything together and taste. Feel free to adjust with more honey or balsamic vinegar.

If you think it needs it, you can also add some salt.

Boil the water for your pasta with plenty of salt and cook the cappelletti for a few minutes.

Prepare your plates.

First separate the leaves from the second radicchio. You’ll need one leaf per plate. Choose the nicest leaves and be careful they don’t break.

Wash the leaves and pat them dry with a clean cloth.

Put each leaf in the centre of a large plate, and spoon one or two tablespoons of cream of radicchio. You want to put the radicchio cream at the centre of the bottom part of the leaf.

Drain your cappelletti, and transfer to a bowl. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with a generous amount of Belmorso extra virgin olive oil, or Novello, and grate a good amount of pecorino cheese.

Mix the cappelletti in the bowl and start spooning them on top of the radicchio cream, inside the radicchio leaf. Keep the portions small.

Finish the dishes with a drizzle of Platinum Balsamic vinegar on top of the cappelletti pasta.

Serve and enjoy.

Tips

Make sure you don’t skip the part where you put the radicchio leaves in water overnight. This is what’s going to remove some of the bitterness. If you don’t want to put the pasta inside the radicchio leaf, you can plate it as in the picture below. This also works if you are using rucola instead of radicchio.