Cannelloni De San Esteban. Christmas recipe

How to make cannelloni of San Esteban or Christmas .

Today I bring you some of the most traditional Christmas recipes in Catalonia.

On December 26, coinciding with the festivity of Saint Stephen and Christmas Day, in Catalan homes there is a dish that rarely fails on the table, the Saint Stephen’s cannelloni or Christmas cannelloni .

According to friend Roser Herrera ” you know Christmas has arrived when you make tons of cannelloni … ”

In Catalonia, this dish is traditionally prepared as a way of taking advantage, I would say, of the possible remains of the meat left over from the Christmas Eve dinner, where the traditional thing is to prepare the escudella and the carn dollo .

These are complete dishes where a great variety of meats, veal, pork and chicken are cooked with potatoes and chickpeas. Well, with the remains of meat these cannelloni are prepared that are subtly different from the classic meat cannelloni .

To give it that authentic touch, we have prepared them with Garofalo Cannelloni , which give such good results, assured Italian quality.

It is a dish deeply rooted in Catalan culture, with or without meat remains, it is usually present at Christmas tables in most of the houses.

This time we have used fresh meat, instead of leftovers from a previous stew, and the result is just as great, I assure you.

The way of cooking this meat combining it with pork liver pate, makes this dish one of my favorites in terms of cannelloni. Let’s see what it looks like to you.

Preparation of the cannelloni of San Esteban

1. We start by cleaning the chicken breast from the remains of fat and cutting it into small cubes. We reserve the meats.
2. Peel the onion and dice it.
3. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and add the chopped onion and whole and unpeeled garlic. We fry the vegetable for about 15 minutes, until it begins to soften.
4. Add the meat and cook for 20 minutes, until you have removed all its water and begins to brown. Salamos. Add the cognac and cook for a few minutes until the alcohol evaporates.
5. Add the pate and stir well to integrate it with the meat. We cook 5 more minutes.
6. We turn off the fire and grind the meat, in batches with a blender or a kitchen robot so that we are left with a thick cream.
7. Transfer the minced meat to a bowl and add the tomato sauce and mix well.
8. We add chicken broth until it reaches the consistency we want, of juicy but compact cream. We reserve.

1. We prepare the bechamel melting the butter in a frying pan.
2. We add the flour and stirring with some rods we cook it for a few minutes.
3. Salt and add milk in batches, integrating it with the rods before adding more.
4. Add the nutmeg and let the sauce cook for 5 minutes. We turn off and reserve.
5. We cook the cannelloni sheets following the manufacturer’s instructions.
6. Once they are ready we place them on a damp cotton cloth and cover them with another cloth also moistened. This way we prevent them from drying out and breaking when handling them.
7. We put a bed of béchamel sauce in the baking dish that we are going to use and begin to fill the cannelloni.
8. We put a portion of filling on each sheet and roll to make the pasta cylinders. We are placing the cannelloni, with the closure up, in the source that we have chosen.
9. We cover the cannelloni with the bechamel sauce and sprinkle grated cheese.
10. With the oven preheated to 1901C we cook the cannelloni for 5 minutes.
11. After this time, we raise the tray to the top of the oven and gratinate 10-15 minutes more.

We already have some classic San Esteban cannelloni ready, perfect to accompany with a green salad and have a plate of yummy.

You can see all the photos of the cannelloni recipe from San Esteban in this step by step.