TURKEY POLPETTONE WITH ROCKET

Remember the polpettone with spinach that I showed you a couple of weeks ago? Well, I decided to adapt the recipe and make it "mine" by using rocket instead of spinach as I thought it would give a nice peppery flavour and it has the advantage of not needing pre-cooking. I left out the chilli pepper flakes, added peppers to the polpettone as well as the sauce and made some other adjustments too: 

OK, let's start with the sauce: finely chop 1 medium white onion, 2 cloves of garlic and a red pepper. Soften these in 2 tablsp olive oil, then add the contents of a 400 gr can of pomodorini [cherry tomatoes] or of chopped tomatoes. Stir and add the contents of a 200 gr box of passata too. Stir well, season and then add 75 gr washed and chopped rocket, the leaves of 2 sprigs of thyme, a little dried oregano and about 4 torn basil leaves. Now add 12 fresh datterini or cherry tomatoes, squash them a bit with the back of your mixing spoon as you stir the mixture and then let it all cook over a low flame for about 30 mins. Turn off the heat. 

Now for the polpettone: in a large bowl, mix a tablesp of the tomato sauce with 500 gr minced turkey, 1 finely chopped red pepper and 1 finely chopped yellow pepper, 1 beaten egg, another 75 gr washed and chopped rocket and about 8 tablesp pangrattato [or fine fresh breadcrumbs]. Line a baking tray with foil and on top of this, dampened baking paper and here's the fun part! Oil your hands and form the mixture into a long, oval loaf shape. Plonk it onto the tray, wrap the baking paper round it as if it were a sweet and tie the ends with cooking string - it should look a bit like a Christmas cracker. Cook at 180 C for about 50 mins. You can serve this at room temperature with some of the cooled sauce but it will firm up and be easier to slice if you refigerate it for a few hours and serve it cold with the sauce chilled.

This time I remembered to serve the sauce in yellow pepper shells!