help with a recipe
 

saw this on a cooking show, trying to duplicate it


1- nice big (manacotti?? those large cylindrical ones)
2- boil just a wee bit to get it soft and pliable
3- stuff with lots of ricotta cheese, peppers, spices etc. etc.

typical right?

4- olive oil it up
5- roll in bread crumbs and/or some sort of batter
6- fry it up.

so, basically it's sort of a combination of a stuffed manicotti/deep fried burrito/spring roll type thing.


now, i didnt have the big manicoti (i think they're called manicoti) so i used something smaller, and i substituted the cheese with sour cream (may have been part of the problem)

now, where my question lies in is the batter/deep fry part. i really don't have much/any experience with oil-frying, most of the stuff i make is very light, airy, natural (mediterranean or oriental stuff)

so, any good tips out there.

i attempted it (i only used 2) and it didnt come out that nice brown that those chinese-take out egg roll (you know, the one EVERY chinese place has) and they didn't solidify all nice and crispy like...


i should have got the address or remembered which cooking show i saw it on...

If you had a problem with getting the crust to stick I would suggest not putting olive oil on it before the batter, and if using bread crumbs, coat the thing in beaten egg before applying the bread crumbs. After that, don't put it in the oil until the oil is hot (a small moist piece of bread crumb thrown in the oil should bubble slightly when the oil is hot enough). That should keep the bread crumbs on and make sure that they brown/crisp up appropriately; as far as the substitution with sour cream... I would imagine that that would give it a remarkably different flavor, and sour cream tends to become much more runny than ricotta when heated, so there will be problems keeping it in the pasta while you're heating it even with the bread crumbs/batter unless you cook it at a VERY high temperature (so that you cook the outside of the batter almost instantly without really heating the inside, the same principle as frying icecream).

Fried ravioli is also extremely awesome (you can use the frozen variety that comes in the bags, and defrost 'em -- follow the instructions below- I'll usually serve with a fresh tomato salsa...

You could probably get frozen manicotti (celentano makes a sauce free one)\\\ Defrost it...
then dust it with flour, roll it in an egg wash, and then put it in the bread crumbs.

When deep frying, use enough oil, I wouldn't deep fry in olive oil, and make sure that the oil is hot enough, gently place the manicotti in the oil.

I can't comment on the deep frying, but I'd definatly use the ricotta.

yeah, would not recommend frying in olive oil, (too low of a smoke point) peanut oil if you have it, because it sounds like you want it very hot.

Yeah sour cream won't do for a substitute for ricotta, if anything use cottage cheese, but only if you are desperate.

use mascarpone cheese for a dessert