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Stuffed Rolls
(Pagnottelle ripiene) Take some rolls, and by means of a round opening on the top, as large as a half dollar piece or less extract nearly all the crumb, leaving the intact, but not too thin. Wet inside and outside with hot milk, and when they are fairly soaked , dip in beaten eggs and fry them in lard or oil. When beginning to brown, fill them with meat that has been previously chopped and cooked.
This chopped meat ought to be made with breast of chicken, chicken giblets, liver etc., brown stock and some flour to hold it together. 39
A frying-pan dish built on stale rolls and cooked leftovers, with two points that decide whether it works: the bread must be soaked but not collapsing, and the filling must be thick enough to stay put.
- The hinge: a stiff fillingThe chopped chicken, giblets and liver are bound with brown stock and flour into something closer to a thick ragu than a sauce. If it runs, it will pour out of the opening and burn in the fat. Cook it down until a spoon drawn through leaves a clean track.
- "As large as a half dollar"The old half dollar is about 1 1/4 inches across, so the opening is roughly 3 cm. Keep the shell of crumb about half an inch thick; too thin and the roll disintegrates in the milk.
- Choosing the rollsDay-old crusty rolls of the kind that hold their shape when wet. Soft supermarket dinner rolls turn to paste in hot milk and cannot be hollowed cleanly.
- Soaking"Fairly soaked" means damp through to the crust but still firm in the hand. A brief dip is enough; the milk should be hot but not boiling, and the rolls should drain a moment before they go into the egg.
- Brown stockIn a period kitchen this meant a reduced, well-coloured meat stock, richer than plain broth though not necessarily as concentrated as a modern demi-glace. A good reduced chicken stock with the fond from browning the giblets does the same job. The flour is there as a binder.
- FryingLard or oil at a moderate frying heat, in the region of 340-350F, deep enough to come halfway up the rolls, turning once. The egg coating sets in a minute or two a side; any hotter and the outside colours before the inside warms.
- When to fillFilling a roll while it sits in hot fat is awkward and splashy. Since the meat is already cooked, it is simpler to fry the rolls through, drain them, then spoon the hot filling into the openings before serving.
- GibletsHearts and gizzards need longer, slower cooking than livers, which want only a brief sear or they turn grainy. Cook them separately and chop them together.
- YieldThe original gives none. Reckon one roll per person as a first course or a light lunch dish, two as a main, with about 1/3 cup of filling each.
Pagnottelle ripiene belongs to the large Italian family of dishes designed around bread that has gone hard, a category that also produces panzanella, pappa al pomodoro and countless stuffed and fried breads of the south. The technique here, milk to soften, beaten egg to seal, hot fat to set, is the same one behind Neapolitan street frying, and it is generally traced to household economy rather than any restaurant tradition: the filling is made of the parts of the bird that are not the roast, the giblets and liver and whatever breast meat is left. Its appearance in The Italian Cook Book reflects how such books were assembled for an American audience in the years around 1919, when Italian home cooking was being introduced to readers whose acquaintance with it was often said to be narrow. Recipes that turned leftovers into something presentable had obvious appeal, and the terse instructions assume the reader already knows how to make a brown stock and how hot the fat should be.