Giant pasta shells stuffed with herbed ricotta recipe
The trick here is to use really, really good-quality passata, as it forms the backbone of your sauce. Usually, giant pasta shells are pre-cooked before they go in the sauce, but there’s really no need, as long as you make sure the sauce covers them.
Ingredients
For the stuffed pasta- 250 g ricotta
- 3 x 125g/4.4oz balls of fresh mozzarella: 1 finely diced, 2 left whole
- 3 bushy sprigs of basil, leaves finely chopped
- 2 tbsp finely chopped chives
- 1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 pinch salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper
- 1 amount of vegetable oil, for greasing
- 200 g conchiglioni/giant pasta shells (or enough to cover the bottom of your baking dish in a single layer)
- 700 ml good-quality passata
- 200 ml water
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
- 3 sprigs of basil, leaves finely chopped
- 1 pinch salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 loaf of crusty bread
- 4 servings of green salad
Details
- Cuisine: British
- Recipe Type: Pasta
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 10 mins
- Cooking Time: 50 mins
- Serves: 4
Step-by-step
- Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
- Place the ricotta in a bowl and add the diced mozzarella, basil, chives, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly and taste to check the seasoning.
- Brush a large ceramic baking dish (about 30 x 21cm/12 x 8inch) with oil.
- Mix the sauce ingredients together in the baking dish. If your passata already has salt in, don’t add more; if not, taste and add as necessary.
- Fill the pasta shells with the ricotta mixture – as they’re not cooked, this might be easiest to do with (clean) fingers or a teaspoon.
- Nestle the filled shells in the sauce, with the openings facing upwards. Press the shells down slightly into the sauce so that it almost covers the whole shell, but not the cheese – any pasta not in the sauce may not cook.
- Tear the remaining two balls of mozzarella into pieces and arrange on top of the shells and sauce, being sure to cover the shells. Drizzle over a little more olive oil.
- Bake in the oven for 50 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5-10 minutes before serving with some crusty bread and crunchy green salad.
This recipe is from LEON Happy One Pot Vegetarian by Rebecca Seal and Chantal Symons. Published by Conran Octopus, £17.99.
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