Cappelletti in Brodo

Woohoo! Now is the moment I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for: the completion of this week’s 3-part recipe! Earlier in the week we made Chicken Broth, then we made Pasta, and today we will put those two parts together to make a delicious, delicious soup! P.S. Gotta love the name of this soup, right?

Cappelletti in Brodo/Little Hat Soup

½ C Ricotta or cottage cheese

½ C finely chopped cooked chicken

2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg, beaten

1/8 tsp salt

Nutmeg

Pepper

2 qts Chicken Broth

½ recipe Pasta

Mix ingredients together in a bowl. The chopped chicken should come from what you strained out of the chicken broth. If you didn’t make the fancy chicken broth, any cooked chicken will do. I actually wound up using closer to ¾ C of chicken because the filling mixture looked very thin with only ½ C. I’m usually not a fan of Ricotta at all, but this didn’t turn out too bad. The nutmeg and pepper are added to taste – I would recommend a normal amount of pepper, and even though the nutmeg seems strange, add a fair amount. Set mixture aside.

Roll out pasta about 1/16 in. thick. Cut into 2 ½ in. rounds with a cookie cutter.

Place spoonful of filling mixture in the center of each round. Fold each round in half, covering the mound of filling. Be careful how much you add so it doesn’t squeeze out everywhere! Dampen edges of pasta with water and press together to seal. Bring two extreme ends together, dampen and seal. I didn’t do the final fold because it forced the filling out of the pocket. Maybe it’s because I’m not Italian, but I thought the half-moon pockets looked fine (although they don’t really look like hats). I also figured out that after you make the dumplings, let them sit for a few minutes so the dampened edges of the pasta have a chance to fuse together – this will help keep them from bursting during cooking. Between the filling and the pasta, this recipe made approximately 26 “hats”.

Bring broth to boiling and add pasta. Cook about 20 to 25 minutes or until pasta is tender. Serve with broth. Remember when the broth recipe said to strain out all the vegetables? Nowhere in this does it say to add them back in, and I thought that was a real crime. I mean, I love vegetables, and it seemed like a waste to use them in the broth but not eat them. On top of that, we’re trying to eat healthy, so the more vegetables the better!

This was fantastic. No, really. Like I said, I’m not really a fan of Ricotta or ravioli-type things, but I really liked this. My husband loved it! A few days after I originally made this, I pulled some of the containers of soup to the front of the refrigerator and he was like, “Wait, there’s more? I didn’t know there was more!” After which he immediately microwaved himself some Little Hat Soup.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!