Anne Burrell's Goat Cheese and Spinach Mezzelune | Worst Cooks in America | Food Network

I'm going to show you how to make mezzaluna filled with goat cheese and spinach with a guanciale and cherry tomato sauce. We're going to start off with one pound of flour on your table. So what we're going to do is we're going to make a hole in this, a big hole. And we go four eggs right in the hole. Now, that's four whole eggs and one yolk. So yolk, break your egg, two halves, let the whites kind of fall out. If you have a little white in there in your yolk, that's fine. Some olive oil and some salt. Fork. We just start beating our eggs. And so what I do is start to go around and incorporate flour into the wet stuff. Scrape your board and really start to get all of this combined. All right. So my dough is combined. Now I need to knead. And this is how I do it. Plastic, you take a rest, OK? You rest. So I have baby spinach. I'm going to saute my spinach ahead of time, all right? I want to cook it first. So remember this garlic trick that we do? So olive oil and my smashed garlic clove, a little tiny pinch of crushed red pepper. So all right, a little salt in there. My spinach is done. So I'm going to put it in there and let it cool down for a little bit. So I have ricotta cheese, goat cheese. I'm going to do some parm. And I'm going to add an egg. That I'm going to let hang out for a second. Guanciale is, we would treat it the exact same way we would treat bacon. This one has the skin on the outside, so I'm just going to cut the skin off. But I can also save the skin to use it. It's got a lot of flavor in it. I'm making very thin slices of this. All right, so I have some slices, very thin slices of guanciale. Now I'm going to cut it in half this way. All right, now I'm going to give it just a little bit of olive oil in the beginning, just a little bit. And then in the pan on a low heat. We have some onion that we're going to start off with. Right in half through the middle. So I'm going to dice my onion. And then downtown. I'm going to do two garlic cloves. All right, cut that little endy guy off. And then off the edge of my board with the handle of my knife. Boom. There we go. And then do a little chop. Now I'm going to get my cherry tomatoes ready. So I'm just cutting these in half. That's it. All right, so you see what we've got here? So I'm taking this out so it stays nice and crispy. I will add a little bit back in at the end of the cook of my sauce, onions. So I'm sweating my onions in my guanc fat and just letting them hang out and doing their thing. Sauce is working, pasta dough resting. The base of my filling here. So my spinach, look how much water is coming out. See, what did I tell you? Now I'm going to chop this very finely. Chop a little oregano. OK, there we go. So I'm making sure that my filling is really well mixed, that it's a homogeneous mixture, that my goat cheese and the ricotta are really well blended. Because I smashed the garlic to break all the cells and chopped it, the second that garlic hits the hot oil, it gives off its garlic goodness. You smell the garlic oils hitting the hot oil, and it immediately releases a lot of flavor. All right, cherry tomatoes. So I'm letting this cook till I see my cherry tomatoes start to wilt a little bit. And then I'm going to add a little chicken stock in there. So then it will really become saucy. So we have a pastry bag. All right, so we fold it over, and we make a cup. Take some, and you stick it in there, and then scrape it off your thumb, sort of. So it fills there. And keep on doing that until it fills up even to your hand. Squish it in there. And then when it's to where it's even to your hand, wiggle the cup down. Look what we have, a filled pastry bag. Give it a twist. We're not going to cut this off until we're ready to use it. So now is when I'm going to add some chicken stock to this. So OK, give it a squash. And we're going to give it a dusting of flour. It feeds itself through, and we catch it on the back of our hands. Now, my dough feels tacky still. So I am giving it a dusting of flour. And I'm folding it in half, giving it a little squish together. And I'm putting it back through on number one. So now, my dough is at the right texture to move on. So I'm giving it another dusting of flour. And I'm folding it in thirds like a letter. OK? I'm just going to give it a little tug to kind of narrow it so it fits in my machine beautifully. And again, on number one. OK? Yes. This is what I'm talking about. So now, I go to number two. Again, on the back of my hands. Now, number three. All right, number four. I'm going to number five. Number six. Oh. All right. I am making sure that there's not lots of flour on the inside of there. All right, so shake it off. And the, all right, now this guy, hey, we're cutting out rounds. All right, so then look at this. So now, our filling. We just cut the tip of the bag off. I would say don't make a crazy huge hole. Like, have it be manageable. All right? It's like this. Squeeze, stop, pull away. A little flour on the bottom. Fold it in half. And pinch it shut. And make sure that you go around and that really give it a good squeeze. All right, boiling. So here we go. We drop all these guys in. All right, so here we go. I'm going to add just a little bit of this pasta water. Now is when I'm going to add my oregano and some of my guanciale. Turn off the burner. All right, a swirl, some Parmesan cheese, and olive oil. So we want to plate these nicely together. All right, and then I like to have just the last little bit of sauce right sort of around the top. I have another teeny tiny little sprinkle of oregano, another little sprinkle of crispy guanciale, and there we go. Voila. Wow. All right.