A filled fresh pasta from the Bergamo and Brescia provinces of Lombardy, the two cities each claiming their own version. In the Bergamo style the filling is a sweet-savoury mixture of braised beef and pork or salami meat bound with breadcrumb, egg and grated cheese, lifted with crushed amaretti, raisins, a little pear, lemon zest and parsley. The dough is folded into a plump shape — often a sweet-wrapped or pinched parcel — and the cooked casoncelli are dressed with melted butter, sage and crisped pancetta, then dusted with cheese.
Both Bergamo and Brescia trace casoncelli to the late Middle Ages and dispute its birthplace. A Bergamo document of 1386 by the notary Castello Castelli records stuffed «artibotuli» served at a banquet — an old name read as an ancestor of the dish — while Brescia's claim rests on a 1471 mention by the notary Jacopo Melga. The name's origin is itself unsettled: some derive it from caseus (cheese), for the filling, others from calzoncino (little trouser/turnover), for the folded shape. The amaretti-and-raisin sweetness is a survival of the bittersweet taste of late-medieval and Renaissance cooking, when the filling leaned on candied fruit, almonds and spice; for centuries casoncelli were a poor family's holiday food.
A thick, slightly chewy egg-pasta wrapper around a dense, faintly sweet filling. The first taste is savoury braised meat and cheese; then the amaretti and raisins surface as a gentle, almost dessert-like sweetness, cut by lemon and parsley. Over the top, the butter is browned to a nutty edge, the sage turns crisp, and the pancetta adds salt and crunch. Good casoncelli balance sweet and savoury so neither wins; clumsy ones taste either flatly meaty or cloyingly sweet.
The dough is rolled fairly thick for a filled pasta so it holds its shape and stands up to the rich butter sauce without tearing; egg gives it structure and bite. The breadcrumb and egg in the filling bind the meat and absorb moisture, keeping the parcel firm rather than wet. The sauce is a simple browned-butter: heating butter past melting drives off water and lightly toasts its milk solids (a Maillard browning) into a nutty aroma, while the sage's oils infuse the hot fat and the pancetta renders salt and fat into it. The sweet-savoury balance is deliberate, a holdover of medieval spicing rather than an accident.
Variations
The two great variants are regional: Bergamo's casoncelli are sweeter, with amaretti and raisins, while Brescia's are more delicate — a filling of leftover beef and pork, breadcrumb and grated cheese, usually without the sweet notes. Shapes differ too, from the pinched «candy» twist to a folded half-moon. Within Bergamo, families adjust the meat, the amount of amaretti and whether pear or sausage goes in; the butter-sage-pancetta dressing is the constant across versions.
On the Palate
Where Casoncelli sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
7 steps · 1 hour 10 min active + 30 min waiting
- 140 min
Braise beef (and a little pork or salami) until tender, then chop or grind it fine and let it cool.
- 215 min
Mix the meat with breadcrumb, egg, grated Grana Padano, crushed amaretti, soaked raisins, grated pear, lemon zest, parsley and a little nutmeg into a firm filling.
Watch outBind the filling firm with breadcrumb and egg — a wet filling makes the parcel soggy and it can burst in the boil.
- 330 min
Make an egg-pasta dough, rest it, then roll it out fairly thin and cut into squares or rounds.
- 420 min
Place a small mound of filling on each, fold and pinch into plump parcels, sealing the edges well.
- 510 min
Render diced pancetta until crisp, then brown butter gently with sage leaves until nutty and fragrant.
Watch outBrown the butter gently with sage only until nutty and fragrant — push it and it burns bitter instead of turning golden.
- 65 min
Boil the casoncelli in salted water until they float and the pasta is just tender, a few minutes.
Watch outPull them the moment they float and the pasta is just tender — a few minutes; overcook and the filled parcels split.
- 73 min
Drain and toss with the sage butter and pancetta, finish with grated cheese and serve at once.
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