Savoury Sun-Dried Tomato and Paprika Parcels

1. Ingredients

Filling

Shell

2. Method

1. Get ready (before you start)
2. Prepare the crispy paprika pasta matta and let it rest, covered, while you make the filling. For 320 g of spinach you can use 300 g of total pasta matta flour (150 g semolina + 150 g type 2).
3. For this recipe, oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes work well. If you use dry ones to rehydrate (not oil-packed), pay attention to the seasoning: you can rehydrate them in hot water for 10-20 minutes until soft, then drain. Even so, they usually stay saltier than oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes.
4. Filling
5. Blanch the 160 g fresh spinach (see the note below on the amount of spinach) in water for 1-2 minutes, then drain. Alternatively, chop it into small pieces (do not use whole large leaves), boil for 1 minute in a pot/pan with boiling water, with a lid on, then drain the water and sauté for a few minutes in the pan to dry it.
6. Squeeze the spinach firmly to drain the water well. This step is important: the water left in the spinach then has to be compensated for with breadcrumbs, and it still risks coming out in the oven, soaking the pastry shell and making it tear. Better to spend time squeezing it well now than to fix it later.

7. Blend the squeezed spinach, the 70 g cooked cannellini beans (drained), the 60 g sun-dried tomatoes, the 10 g extra-virgin olive oil and the 2.5 g smoked paprika. Blending the paprika together with the oil is the right technique: the paprika's colour and aroma are fat-soluble and the oil extracts them with no risk of burning.
8. Blend to a thick, smooth cream. Taste and adjust for seasoning: sun-dried tomatoes are already very salty and rich in umami, so add the salt only if the taste calls for it, often it is not needed at all.

9. If the mixture is still too wet, stir in the breadcrumbs. Better to add them a little at a time and check the consistency.
10. Chill the filling while you roll out the dough: a cold, dry filling holds its shape better and seals without making the shell give way.
11. Shaping
12. Divide the pasta matta into balls and roll each into a disc. Place a spoonful of filling in the centre, leaving a generous free border all around. If you like, you can try more creative shapes, as shown in the photos.

13. Leave a few small openings, or use a toothpick to make a few holes on the top of the parcel: this lets the filling's steam escape in a controlled way during baking. A fully sealed parcel risks tearing at a random point and letting the filling out.
14. Keep the parcel's seam facing up (that is, not resting on the tray): otherwise, if the filling is a little watery, a seam facing down will open during baking and let the filling out onto the tray (learned from experience...).
15. Arrange the parcels on a lined baking tray and brush them with a film of olive oil (optional): it gives extra colour and crispness to the surface.

16. Baking
17. Preheat the oven to 200 °C static and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the pastry is well golden. The filling is already cooked: baking only serves to cook the pastry and firm up the filling by evaporating the residual water.
18. Straight out of the oven the filling will be soft: this is normal, it firms up as it cools. Let it cool for a few minutes before serving.

3. Storage

Let cool completely before storing.

• Room temperature: for the same day only, in a cool spot. Beyond that, a vegetable-and-legume filling is a fresh, moist food: at room temperature the risk of bacterial growth rises over the hours.
• Refrigerator: 2-3 days in an airtight container. The pastry softens a little; to bring back the crispness, pop them back in the oven at 180 °C for a few minutes.
• Freezer: up to 3 months. You can freeze them cooked (thaw and reheat in the oven) or raw and already shaped (bake from frozen, adding a few minutes). Avoid refreezing after thawing.

4. Technical Notes

• How much spinach to use? The recipe gives a reference amount for the spinach. I have used fresh spinach, frozen, or a mix of the two, and where the recipe said 320 g of spinach I have also used 300, 400, up to 500 g of fresh. The point is that, if it is chopped and blanched first and squeezed well after cooking, the mixture still comes together nicely.
• Can I swap the spinach? Yes, of course. I have used chicory, catalogna chicory, chard leaves and chard: they all work, but the final flavour changes. Chicory brings a bitter background note, while sweet greens like chard leaves and chard stay more on the sweet side. As always, go with what you have in the pantry and your own taste.
• Sun-dried tomatoes make salt almost redundant. Salt is added to the tomatoes during drying, and dehydration also concentrates the glutamate that gives the umami hit: 120 g already bring plenty of savouriness and flavour. That is why salt should only be added after tasting: the filling is often already well seasoned as is. Oil-packed tomatoes are softer and ready to use; dry ones must be rehydrated first, or they stay leathery, but even softened and drained they often stay saltier than the oil-packed ones, so check the seasoning carefully.
• Why the paprika dissolves in the filling's oil. Paprika's pigments (carotenoids) and aromas are fat-soluble: they develop far better in contact with a fat than dry. Blending it with the 20 g of oil in the filling "opens" it and spreads its colour and aroma with no risk of burning, which is what would happen toasting it dry over high heat, where it would turn bitter.
• Cannellini beans as a creamy binding base. Blended beans give a thick, creamy mass that firms up in the oven thanks to the thermal coagulation of their proteins. Drain them well: the canning liquid would add too much moisture to the filling.
• The seal and the vents. Leaving one or two small vents lets the filling's steam escape in a controlled way, instead of the shell giving way at a random point: this is a principle recognised in other baked filled pastries too. The real hold depends mostly on three things: a cold, dry filling, air pushed out before sealing, and a wide, well-closed border.
• Baking is for the pastry, not the filling. The filling is already cooked: the 20-25 minutes at 200 °C serve to cook the pastry and evaporate the residual water, firming the filling. Straight from the oven the filling is soft and sets as it cools.

5. Variants

• Other legumes instead of cannellini: replace the cannellini with the same amount (1:1) of firm tofu, chickpeas or cooked, well-drained borlotti. The texture stays creamy; the flavour shifts slightly with the legume.
• Plant-based "cheesy" note: a spoonful of nutritional yeast flakes adds a cheese-like note and more umami, while staying 100% plant-based. This is a trend I have noticed a lot in recent years. Personally I do not use nutritional yeast, for several reasons including a health one: it is a relatively new ingredient whose effects on health in above-normal amounts are not well known. Using a few grams as a background note is one thing; using 150 g as the main flavour is another.
• Fresh herbs and lemon zest: chopped parsley or basil and a grating of lemon zest lighten and freshen the filling.

6. Sources

• MyPrepTable: spinach moisture is the number-one enemy of filled pastry
• Serious Eats: sautéing spinach to evaporate its water instead of adding it
• Tasting Table: oil-packed vs rehydratable sun-dried tomatoes
• Weekand: sodium content of sun-dried tomatoes
• MDPI Molecules 2021: carotenoids and polyphenols of paprika (fat-soluble compounds)
• Tasting Table: a grain/starch in the filling absorbs moisture and keeps the pastry crisp
• PastryWiz: cold filling, firm seal and steam vents in filled pastries