Sicilian Cannoli with ricotta filling (Photo: www.mangiabedda.com)

Chi: VOV24/7’s Food Delight is now on the air. We’re here every week to share with you recipes and cooking tips. I’m the show’s host Kim Chi. Today, we’ll meet again our Italian friend Sara Drago, who comes from Sicily, an island in the south of Italy.

Sara: Hi, my name is Sarah. I’m from Italy. 

Chi: Sara, welcome to Food Delight, I’m sure you brought us something good from Sicily.

Sara: We have a lot of good food. Today, I want to talk about one dessert, it’s called cannolo.

Chi: Cannolo? That’s an Italian food that I really really admire. It looks really fancy on the table.

Sara: The name of cannolo means “little tube”. Because the name reference is related to river canes in which the paste for the external crust was rolled during its preparation. Inside traditional cannolo, we have cream. It’s ricotta cheese of Italy, we can also put candy fruit or chocolate. It’s like a cheese cream.

Chi: Sara, how popular is cannolo in Italy?

Sara: We usually eat cannolo in the afternoon with coffee or after lunch. It’s a typical dessert people eat after lunch. In Sicily, people can eat every day. In the North and the center of Italy. They eat it on Sunday or in the afternoon with friends.

Chi: I know that cannolo once was made only during Carnival time in Sicily, particularly in the areas of Messina and Palermo where you come from.  But over the years, these tubes of dough from Sicily have become popular throughout Italy and can be found now in many other parts of the world. Now we’ll make cannolo in Vietnam, with Sara’s help.

Sara: It’s a long preparation, like 2 or 3 hours. To make cannolo, for the external crust, you need flour, eggs and water. When you put all the ingredients, you have to put the pasta around the iron tube.

Chi: So, Sara has told us how to make the cannolo shells. While preparing the pasta dough for the cannolo shells, you may add a little wine and milk to enhance the flavor. This is a very simple recipe that Sara often makes at home. It’s easier to do because it doesn’t require too many ingredients.

After you mix the flour, eggs, and water together, wrap the dough in paper and cool it down in the fridge for 30 minutes. When the dough is ready, cut off a small piece of dough and flatten it with your hands. The next step is to warp the pasta around the iron tube.

Sara: It’s important the tube is iron because after, you put this tube in the oil, and fry the pasta for 10 minutes.

(Photo: www.mangiabedda.com)

Chi: One tip for you: The challenge in frying the shells is that they constantly roll over when you try to flip them to the opposite side. Some shells may unwrap themselves from the iron tubes while frying. You can overcome this problem by sealing the edges of the tubes with egg white.

Sara: After the external crust is brown, the crust is ready, you can do the cream. The cream is ricotta cheese and sugar. There are two ingredients important. Other two ingredients you can choose for the cream are chocolate or candy fruits. Take the ricotta cheese, put inside the sugar, you mix all. You put the cream inside the crust and the cannolo is ready.

Chi: Cannolo is perfect when you have it with a cup of coffee. Try Sara’s cannolo recipe and give us your feedback at: englishsection@vov.org.vn. Good bye until next time.