So this weekend I made my first Cannelloni. Up until now I’d never heard of the dish – I can’t believe how I’ve made it this far in life without knowing.

The recipe I used was from Jamie Oliver’s website with a few changes. The main ones were substituting Gorgonzola (which we couldn’t get hold of on the day) with St Agur, using dried lasagna sheets that were part boiled as I couldn’t get fresh and using prosciutto instead of pancetta.

So to start with you first make a beef ragu. This starts with onion, celery, carrot and garlic.

Once I browned these, half the veg was removed and then the mince and prosciutto was browned. Red wine, stock and chopped tomatoes were then added to this and left to simmer for 45mins.

I then boiled the lasagna sheets. Make sure you add olive oil to the water to prevent sticking. This caught me out and I lost the first batch.

Whilst this was simmering I create the sauce for the bottom of the dish. This started with the veg removed earlier and then more chopped tomatoes, tomato purée, sugar and oregano. After simmering for 15 mins this goes in the bottom of the dish.

Next to create the sauce for the top. This is made of milk and cream. I used creme fresh instead. Garlic nutmeg and cheese are then added to this.

At this point I didn’t think that the cheese sauce or the ragu were thick enough to I added some dissolved cornflower to both.

Now time for making the rolls! As I’d never done this before it was a little fiddly to start with but I soon got it down. About 3 wooden spoon fulls seemed the right amount.

I rolled them up and added them to the dish.

Then add the cheese sauce.

Then grated cheese and blue cheese.

Now time for the oven. The recommended cooking for this is 30-35 minutes at 180 degrees c. I have an old oven that tends to need to be at a lower temp, so I cooked at 160 for 25 and it came out perfectly.