Fabio Viviani knows how to make classic, traditional Italian meals in the quickest, most convenient way possible. Talk about multitasking: As I spoke to Fabio over the phone, I could hear something sizzling in the background. Running a two-million-dollar restaurant and hospitality empire, it's easy to understand why Viviani barely has time to eat lunch – so during our phone interview, Fabio was cooking Sicilian-style shrimp, sautéed in butter and spicy Calabrian chili peppers. As he was describing it to me, I felt like I could smell the aromas through the phone.
It's not every day you get the chance to talk to one of your all-time favorite celebrity chefs – in Italian too, for that matter. If you're a Top Chef fan like I am, then you know just how charming and good looking Fabio is – then add in that heavy Italian accent… Let’s just say it’s no surprise that he was named the fifth season’s "Fan Favorite" in 2008. Since his appearance on the Bravo hit TV reality competition show, Fabio has become a restaurateur and hospitality developer, a bestselling cookbook author, and a TV host.
Originally from Florence, Fabio has also studied the numerous regional cuisines across Italy, including regions further north such as Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna. Since moving to the United States in 2005, Fabio has dedicated his career to sharing the finest Italian recipes with an American audience – showing them how to incorporate even the very best of Italian cuisine into their own menus at home.
In his debut book of recipes, titled Fabio's Italian Cookbook, Viviani pays tribute to the women in his family who have inspired him throughout his life – like his mother and grandmother – who instilled in Fabio a passionate love for cooking and good food. In 2014, Fabio published his follow-up cookbook called Fabio's American Home Kitchen, which features over 125 recipes of Fabio’s favorite American dishes with an Italian twist. And the best part? The steps are easy to follow, the ingredients are high-quality and most of the dishes featured are not only family-friendly, but they’re also easy to make in advance – for those days when life gets a little too hectic.
As an avid Italian cook myself, I know there is no wrong way of preparing a classic Italian dish, but I have always been told that "Nonna's way is the best way.” And though that may be true, some of the traditional cooking methods used in the past aren’t exactly realistic. Like many of us – who are busy balancing everyday life, working and raising a family – it can be difficult to simply find the time to cook a good old-fashioned Italian meal, that we grew up eating and loving ourselves as kids. For the most part, we just don't have the time to spend hours in the kitchen like our grandmothers used to. So if anyone is going to uncover shortcuts in an Italian kitchen, while still delivering that same wholesome, authentic, traditional Italian comfort food, it's the renaissance man himself, Chef Viviani.
Similar to lasagna, cannelloni is a cheesy baked pasta dish with tomatoes that guarantees a happy family meal. Cannelloni – not to be mistaken with cannoli or manicotti – are smooth sheets of pasta filled with minced meat or cheese and then baked in the oven with tomato sauce. In Italian, the word ‘cannelloni’ literally means ‘pipes,’ which is exactly what they are – a cylindrical type of lasagna!
In the regions of Le Marche, Campania, and Emilia-Romagna, cannelloni are traditionally filled with bolognese sauce. They were originally created by an Amalfi chef known as Salvatore Coletta in 1924. Back then, Coletta would fill the cannelloni with minced meat and a béchamel sauce made from ricotta, parmesan and fior di latte mozzarella and baked in the oven with tomato sauce.
According to Fabio, when you’re making his vegetarian recipe for spinach and ricotta cannelloni, "A little bit of laziness is ok." Viviani says it’s fine to buy ready-made fresh pasta from the grocery store. But if he decides to make his cannelloni pasta sheets from scratch, Viviani always uses a food processor. He's been making fresh homemade pasta with his food processor for years, explaining that it’s much quicker and easier than kneading the dough by hand. Plus, the result is always the same. Even his nonna couldn’t tell the difference for years.
Fabio also emphasizes the importance of the egg yolks if you’re making the pasta from scratch: When making fresh pasta dough, use more egg yolk than required in the recipe if you want a richer pasta that you plan to serve and eat right away. For a lighter pasta, use less egg yolk. Egg yolk is higher in fat concentration, so it keeps the pasta from drying out.
A few more of Fabio’s tips for making cannelloni
Cook the spinach and squeeze out the excess water. Chop it and mix with fresh ricotta, minced garlic, 2 eggs, grated mozzarella cheese, a pinch of salt and pepper. Place a spoonful of ricotta filling on one end of the pasta sheet and roll it up.\
Use a casserole dish to bake the cannelloni. Prepare a simple tomato sauce using canned tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. Coat the bottom of the casserole dish with tomato sauce so the pasta doesn’t stick. Line the cannelloni side by side and fill any empty gaps in the dish with some added tomato sauce. Be sure to cover the top of the cannelloni with tomato sauce so the pasta does not dry out while baking in the oven.\
Fabio tops it off with an extra cheesy béchamel sauce that makes his spinach and ricotta cannelloni rich and flavorful. The béchamel sauce is simply made by melting butter and flour in a saucepan, then gradually pouring in milk. Continue to stir. Once the cream has thickened, add a good helping of grated grana padano cheese, grated mozzarella, and grated montasio cheese. If you can't find montasio, substitute it with "any cheese that’s good for melting" such as taleggio or fontina. Once you've added all the cheese into the sauce, let it simmer over a low heat and continue to stir until the consistency is thick and creamy.\
Pour the béchamel sauce over the cannelloni and top off with one last sprinkling of grated montasio and grana padano before putting in the oven. Bake until the cheese melts and browns slightly on top – no more than 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees!\
When serving, drizzle a little olive oil over the plated cannelloni pasta with a pinch of grated cheese for melt-in-your-mouth cheesy deliciousness.
So – what's the charming Top Chef up to these days? As if he wasn't busy enough, he's been working on several new projects, which include a huge satellite kitchen start-up called Foodhaul.com, which lends recipes to people in the food industry, as well as opening up a series of restaurants and venues all over the country from Detroit to Memphis –anything from American pubs and Italian fare to steak and seafood spots and food courts. In the meantime, he’s still creating episodes for his YouTube cooking series Fabio's Kitchen, featuring classic Italian recipes that you can easily make at home.