Episode Three: 4-Cheese Stuffed Shells

When C moved into his previous apartment, we had the great fortune of realizing that one of my best friends had recently moved into an apartment right around the corner.  She invited us to dinner after we finished the moving process, and made us these absolutely wonderful stuffed shells.  Remembering how great they were, and how much C seemed to like them, I decided to surprise him with shells for dinner.  I couldn't find a recipe I liked in our books, so I set off to The Internet to find something a little better.

I couldn't find any one recipe that I liked, so I combined Rachael Ray's recipe with a sauce recipe that was provided in someone else's recipe for shells.  Unfortunately, I can't find the sauce recipe now, so I'll just pretend I used all of Rachael's recipe for the purposes of this entry.

Four Cheese Stuffed Shells
Salt
8 pieces jumbo pasta shells
1 1/2 pounds ricotta cheese or part skim ricotta cheese
1 pound mozzarella, diced
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 cup shredded Asiago
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 or 7 leaves fresh basil, torn or shredded


Preparation:

1. Preheat oven or broiler to 450 degrees F.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt water and add pasta. Cook shells 12 to 15 minutes, they should be softened but still undercooked at the center. Drain pasta and cool.

3. Combine ricotta, 1/2 of the diced mozzarella, a couple of handfuls of Parmigiano and 1/2 of the Asiago. Add parsley to the cheeses and stir to combine.

4. To a small saucepot over moderate heat add oil, garlic and onions. Saute onions and garlic 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and season sauce with salt and pepper. Simmer sauce 5 minutes and stir in basil leaves

5. Pour a little sauce into the bottom of a shallow medium sized casserole dish. Fill shells with rounded spoonfuls of cheese mixture and arrange them seam side down in casserole dish. Top shells with remaining sauce and remaining mozzarella and Asiago cheeses. Place shells in very hot oven or 8 inches from hot broiler and cook 6 to 8 minutes to melt cheeses and bubble sauce.

I had a few issues with this recipe.  First of all, I immediately decided to use more shells than what the recipe recommended.  Going through all the other comments and home-submitted recipes alerted me to the fact that these shells are small, and the amount of filling that the recipe makes fills way more than just eight shells.  So I ended up cooking about 17 shells total, still having a lot of extra filling left over.

Next, I ran into an issue finding Asiago cheese.  My local Pick 'N' Save is somewhat lacking in several areas, so cheese that is not cheddar was extraordinarily difficult to locate.  I ended up getting Parmesan and Romano.  I also did not get enough Mozzarella, so I was forced to improvise (to prevent my filling from being ALL Ricotta) by grating some string cheese we had sitting around.  Not recommended.

The outcome: though everything was prepared correctly (the shells were the perfect consistency), there was way too much food, and WAY too much filling even after doubling the amount of shells.  The filling was mostly Ricotta, which gave it a sweeter flavor than I would have liked.  It was incredibly creamy, that's true, but I couldn't taste any of the other cheeses, and the texture actually started to make me feel sick.  Next time I'll look for a recipe that doesn't use quite so much Ricotta... I think that should solve the problem.

Newb: 1  Food: 1  Ricotta: 1

♥ Ashley