I should have created a category on my blog called ‘things we won’t be doing every day because they take a heck of a long time’ but it was too long.

There’s a bit of context around this recipe: initially, I wanted to make a variation of veal cannelloni—one with a tomato sauce inspired by a revisited osso-bucco, and one with a forest flavor using lightly smoked meat and truffle. However—and here’s the sad part—I couldn’t get the truffles delivered due to some obscure timing issues… Anyway, since we’re by the seaside:

Serves 4 as a main dish

For the cannelloni

• 300 g of extra-fine durum wheat semolina
• 4 g of squid ink paste
• 1 heaping tablespoon of sweet paprika
• 3 eggs

For the fillings

Meat

• 1 veal rack (two ribs with the bone)
• 300 g of tomato pulp
• ½ yellow onion
• 1 teaspoon of dried savory, oregano, or herbes de Provence
• 200 g of chanterelle mushrooms
• ½ glass of Noilly Prat (optional)
• 15 cl of thick cream

Seafood

• 1 lobster (600-700 g)
• 1 handful of seaweed salt
• ¾ liter of mussels
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 bunch of curly parsley
• The remaining half of the yellow onion from above (pay attention!)
• ½ glass of white wine (optional)
• 1 bunch of basil (about 20 leaves)
• 60 g of pine nuts
• 12 cl of olive oil
• Absolutely no Parmesan! we’re NOT making pesto 🙂
• 1 ball of mozzarella

Start by preparing the cannelloni dough to let it rest:
Make three smooth dough balls:

1. One with 1 egg and 100 g of semolina (plain).
2. One plain plus squid ink.
3. One plain plus paprika.

Let the dough rest for at least an hour.

Cook the veal ideally on a closed barbecue with a smokey setting at low temperature for about 2.5 hours.
If not available, use a conventional oven at 120°C (248°F). Debone the meat and keep it covered while preparing the rest. Keep the bones to flavor the tomato base.

Gently reduce the tomato pulp with the reserved bones and keep warm.

In two separate pots, prepare:

1. A salted broth for cooking the lobster.
2. A court bouillon with salt, ½ sliced onion, ½ bunch of chopped parsley, 1 garlic clove, and white wine for the mussels.

Cook the mussels until fully opened. Cook the lobster for about 14 minutes after humanely dispatching it by severing its central nervous system.

Extract the mussel meat and lobster flesh, then refrigerate them separately.

Prepare the seafood sauce base: Blend the remaining parsley, pine nuts, garlic, basil, and olive oil in a food processor until it has a pesto-like texture. Refrigerate.

Roll out and precook the cannelloni for 1 minute 30 seconds:
Each dough ball should yield four rolls, each the length of a standard pasta roller and 3.5-4 cm in diameter. Cover with a damp cloth to prevent them from drying out.

Dice the meat into ½ cm cubes. The pieces closest to the interior will be added to the reduced tomato sauce, which should be gently heated to about 60°C (140°F).

Final step before assembly: the chanterelles.
Sauté the chanterelles in a splash of olive oil.

drop this garlic and parsley right now, if you still have some left, you didn’t follow the instructions!

Once the chanterelles have reduced, remove them from the pan, dice into pieces no larger than ½ cm, and return them to the pan. Deglaze with Noilly if desired. Lower the heat to medium, add the cream, and reduce slightly. Reheat the remaining veal in the mushroom mixture.

Separate the herb sauce in two: mix half with the mussels and the other half with the lobster.

Assembly on the plate
Each cannelloni is cut in half and filled as follows:

• Squid ink: 1 with herbs and lobster, 1 with herbs and mussels.
• Paprika: 2 with tomato and veal.
• Plain: 2 with mushrooms and veal.

Add ⅛ of the mozzarella ball on each squid ink cannelloni and grill under a salamander or broiler at 200°C (392°F) for one minute to melt the cheese.

Serve immediately.