Puff pastry cannoli appetizers filled with tuna mousse

I passionately love entertaining! It is at dinner parties that I can let all my creativity run wild and prepare something really special to spoil my guests with.

I love long and slow Italian style dinners where lots of food is slowly being consumed and served along with different types of wines. If you go to an event in Italy, like a wedding, a new year’s party or to any other special celebration you will find that the food comes slowly and in small portions so you can have more of it and enjoy every single mouthful.

I love to replicate that sort of experience at home (although on a smaller scale) when I invite friends around. One of my most successful appetizers are savoury cannoli: not only do they look pretty on the table, they are also incredibly moreish.

I make the cannoli out of puff pastry with different types of fillings. At my last dinner party I filled them with a tuna mousse. I used Rio Mare tuna which I actually know very well as I grew up with it; this is a very well known Italian brand now available in the UK too. If I can give an honest review about this tuna, it is in my opinion, one of the tastiest on the market: rich and delicate at the same time, it is packed with flavour and frankly I cannot have enough of it.

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Enjoy the recipe!

• Prep Time : 25 minutes
• Cook Time : 15 minutes
• Yield : 15

Ingredients

• For the cannoli:
• puff pastry – 1 sheet
• sesame and/or poppy seeds – 2 tbsp (to sprinkle)
• shelled pistachios – handful
• milk – to brush the cannoli
• butter – to grease
• cannoli tubes
• For the filling:
• Rio Mare tuna in olive oil – 200 g – 7/8 cup
• ricotta cheese – 120 g – 1/2 cup
• fresh double cream – 120 ml – 4 fluid oz
• unwaxed lemon zest – of 1 lemon
• capers – 1 tbsp

Instructions

Switch your oven on to 200C or 390F.

Lightly dust with flour your work top and place the puff pastry on it. Using a knife cut long strips of pastry approximately 1.5 cm or 0.6 inches wide.

Grease your cannoli tubes with a little butter then roll the strips of pastry overlapping it around the tubes.

Lay the tubes on a baking sheet, brush them with milk and sprinkle some or all of them with the seeds; bake them for about 12 to 15 minutes or until golden.

In the meantime put the ricotta cheese, the lemon zest, the capers, the cream and the drained tuna in a processor then whizz until smooth.

When they are cooked, let them cool down and remove them from the tubes.

Fill them with the tuna mousse using a piping bag or a teaspoon.

Chop the pistachios into rough pieces and sprinkle them on the mousse.

You should always fill them just before serving them to avoid them going soft.

It’s party time!