
Italian Rotolo with sage beurre blanc
filled with oyster mushrooms, onion chutney, spinach & mascarpone
We are so in love with this recipe. If you have some time on a weekend day and feel like making a special recipe that is fun and rewarding to make, don’t look any further! Everyone loves this dish, so you will have all your friends and family impressed, including yourself! Change the filling up with pumpkin in autumn, kale in winter, little green asparagus in spring and fennel in summer. Don’t forget to put on your favourite album during the cooking. Enjoy, and don’t forget; you can prepare everything in advance!
Ingredients
For the rotolo:
400 g Tipo ’00’ flour
4 large free-range eggs
500 gr oyster mushrooms or mushrooms of choice
2 teaspoons dried thyme and/or oregano
300 gr shallots
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons (brown) sugar
500 gr fresh spinach
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
250 gr mascarpone
2 teaspoons ground fennel seeds
salt, pepper & oil
For the beurre blanc:
2 large shallots
2 bay leaves
200 ml white wine
50 ml white wine vinegar
200 ml cream
200 gr butter
6 sage leaves
salt & pepper

Method
Preheat the oven to 220 ‘C. To make the pasta dough, place the Tipo ’00’ flour in a work surface of bowl and mix in a good pinch of salt. Make a hole in the middle and crack in the eggs. Gently mix in the flour until everything is combined. Then start kneading the dough, a moment to release all your energy! Continue until you have a nice smooth and elastic dough. Then wrap in some clingfilm and place in de fridge for at least 30 minutes. This will relax the dough.
In the meantime, make the filling for the rotolo. Pull the oyster mushrooms in strips and spread out on a baking tray. Mix with some oil, salt, pepper and dried thyme. Place in the hot oven and roast for around 8 minutes, until nicely golden. For the onion chutney, chop the shallots in long strips, then sauté in a sauce pan with some oil and salt until caramelized. Deglaze the pan with the balsamic vinegar together with the sugar. Add a splash of water and leave to simmer on low heat for around 5 minutes, then leave to cool down. In a large pan, let the spinach shrink by frying it in some oil with the finely chopped garlic. When cooled, squeeze as much of moisture out as you can. Then sprinkle over the fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper. Mix the mascarpone with the ground fennel, salt, pepper and a little splash of water. Set aside.
Turn the oven down to 180 ‘C and place in a large and deep baking dish. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and transfer the hot water into the baking dish. Time for the pasta! On a clean work surface Roll out the pasta dough in a large square-shape until it’s around 1 mm thick. Trim off the edges a bit. Then carefully place the pasta dough on a wet tea-towel (roll up the floured dough on your rolling pin, then roll it out again on the tea-towel). Time for the fillings! Smear out the mascarpone mix, leaving 3 cm of the edges clean. Top it with the onion chutney, oyster mushrooms and spinach. Then simply roll up the pasta dough into a ‘rotolo’ and close the two sides by pinching the dough together. Tightly roll up the rotolo in the tea towel. Use some thin rope or elastic to tie together the tea towel on the sides and in the middle. Then place the rotolo in the water bad that you made in the oven. Cover with some thin foil to trap all the steam. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes.
While that’s in the oven, make the beurre blanc. Chop up the shallots and gently fry in a saucepan. Deglaze with the white wine and vinegar. Add the bay leaves and let the white wine reduce by half. Then sieve out the shallots and bay leaves. Add the cream and bring it back up to a heat. Slice the cold butter in cubes and add to the mix a little by little while using a stick blender to blitz everything smooth. Then add the bay leaves and give it another blitz. Season with salt and pepper.
When you have taken the rotolo out of the water, leave it to cool down a little bit. Then take off the tea towel. You could serve it straight away, but we like to roast it in the oven once more for extra caramelization! Cut it in the right portions and place the portions on a baking tray, drizzle with some olive oil and roast at 180 ‘C for 10 to 15 minutes until the edges start to caramelize.
Finally time to serve! This will be rewarding. Heat up your beurre blanc, take your hot Rotolo’s out of the oven, get yourself a nice glass of white wine, sit back & enjoy! Cheers.