Capon stuffed with Cointreau-flavored chestnuts
( Cappone ripieno )

zoom » Capon ready to bake

Stuffed capon recipe

Preparation and cooking

• - Prepare the whole capon with its giblets you've bought.
  Remove giblets from the capon.
  Be careful not to break the gall bladder; if you break it capon meat could have a bitter taste.
  Clean and cut its stomach together with liver, heart and kidneys into pieces.
  Put onion in a pan together with a tablespoon of olive oil and capon giblets.
  Let all fry on a medium heat, 1 minute.
  Then pour in a tablespoon of chestnut preserving liquid.
  Flavor for other two minutes.
  Blaze your capon.
• - Prepare filling.
  Purée drained giblets together with peeled sausage, pumpkin, egg and aromatic herbs.
  Place your mixture in a bowl and add chestnuts (drained and cut into pieces), plain dried breadcrumbs and cooking juice of giblets if advanced.
• - Prepare capon for baking.
  Preheat oven to 180°C (350°C).
  Salt capon inside.
  Spoon filling into the capon and truss with kitchen string.
  Season to taste with salt.
  Put capon in a baking pan with two tablespoons of olive oil and preserving liquid of chestnuts.
• - Baking.
  Bake, 90 minutes.
  Turn over capon sometimes and bast occasionally with its cooking juices.
  Then cut capon into pieces and put apart its filling.
  Bake again capon pieces and whole filling, half an hour.

Just before serving

• - Serve your stuffed capon warm.
  Serve every portion with a slice of filling basted wih cooking juice.

Note

Tips

• - The first photo shows capon portions accompanied by filling in the center.
  The second photo shows you capon after tying it, before baking.
• - This is a very special recipe suitable for Christmas dinner or your special events in Holiday season. You have the best result with Cointreau-flavored chestnuts. If you haven't prepared them, buy limoncello-flavured chestnuts or rhum-flavoured chestnuts.
• - You can cook capon in advance, the day before or fill capon the day before and cook it the day after.

Menu planning

• - Capon filled with chestnuts is a typical Italian Christmas recipe. I created this new stuffing with special chestnuts, flavored with Cointreau liqueur.
  Now I suggest you a full meat-only menu for Holiday Season. You can read all links to recipes in the next paragraph
  Starter: read our traditional Italian antipasto ideas. You'll be able to find your favorite dish. My tip is to serve not too abundant salami. Thy're too rich in fat. Choose a savory tart or pie, rich in vegetables, and serve it, sliced, accompanied by a particular kind of cold cuts such as wild boar salami or other game salami or good-quality prosciutto crudo (raw ham). To complete your antipasto platter, add little black truffle frittatas, stuffed artichokes, Italian crostini, mini turnip top and prawn flans, seasoned olives and vegetables in oil according to your own taste. Vegetables provide fiber which serves in part to counterbalance the excesses of sugar, abundant in this period.
  First course: I suggest Tuscan pappardelle with hare sauce or rice timbale with lentils.
  Second course: this capon recipe accompanied by green salad with apples or oranges. You can find their recipes in vegetable section.
  Dessert: Italian Christmas cakes or handmade cakes such as cocoa Christmas spiced bread or orange and chocolate tart. Consult our Italian cake and dessert list where you'll be able to find panettone or pandoro recipes too.

Useful links for this recipe

• - Tha main ingredient for this recipe: Cointreau-flavored chestnut How-To.
• - This is the link for the other stuffed capon recipe (filling with chestnuts and sausage) of mine.
• - Are you interested in Christmas Italian menus?
• - For the menu mentioned above, consult our directory about Italian starters and appetizers. You'll be able to find all that I've just suggested and much more according to your own taste. Savory tarts and pies, crostini, seasoned olives among Italian antipasto ideas ...
• - Here are the recipes for pappardelle with hare sauce and rice timbale with lentils.
• - How to make seasonal salads to accompany filled capon? have a look at our vegetable directory. There are the recipes for turnip top and prawn flans!
• - Finally I suggest you the area dedicated to Italian cakes and desserts where you can read how to make panettone, pandoro and other typical Christmas cakes in our country at home. Besides there are a lot of delicious tarts with seasonal fruits!

Healthy eating

• - It is not possible to calculate precisely the calories of this stuffed capon because I used my chestnuts, flavored with Cointreau in which it is very difficult to verify the nutrient supply in an objective manner. All depends on the size of the chestnuts and the amount of preservative liquid that are different in each jar. And then fairly in respect of you, readers I prefer not to "give casual numbers".
• - I give you the nutrition facts instead of all the other ingredients so that you can understand how the capon, being a fatty meat, it is high calorie. The solution would be: cooking without skin and removing more evident fat.
  Calories: 649 kcal (2715 kJ)
  Protein: 43.6g
  Total fat: 50.5g
  Total carbohydrates: 2.4g
  Sugars: 1.3g
  Fiber: 0.4g

Loretta

What's the right wine for " Capon stuffed with Cointreau-flavored chestnuts "?

My husband and I generally pair Grignolino or Dolcetto (red wines from Piedmont - Italy) to this stuffed capon.