Dinner for The Architect & The Entrepreneur - Con Ricotta e Spinaci

Let the cooking begin!


The Event - 3 February 2013
My Entrepreneur Friend, who has been in Melbourne for most of the summer, heads back to the Red Centre this week and My Architect's work takes him to Auckland on Monday.  So tonight is the last meal the three of us will share this season.

What better event to kick off the first dish of the Suzanne/Susan Project!

My mind has been roused from the annual food vacation it takes when the Entrepreneur comes to stay.  She thinks ahead and shops and, fetching in her Jessie Steele apron, cooks and puts meals on the table!  My Architect and I are spoilt with great food and great company.

Why does food cooked by another nearly always taste so much better than food cooked by oneself?  Never mind.  Tonight, I am stepping up to the plate, taking on my first Susan Conte challenge.

The Research

I have scoured Pizza and Pasta and come up with a dish so perfect, it incorporates two recipes and a cook's tip.  An excellent start!

Page 101:

Cannelloni with Ricotta and Spinach

Con Ricotta e Spinaci

incorporating from page 37:

Tomato and Fresh Basil Sauce

Pomodoro e Basilico

and the Cook's Tip for Ricotta Cheese - on page 73, Susan assures her Anglophone followers that  ricotta cheese can be easily made at home with just a litre of milk, lemon juice, a muslin bag and a colander.  

I have been wanting to give ricotta or yoghurt cheese making a go for decades, ever since My Architect's then sister-in-law explained how her Maltese family make yoghurt cheese by simply draining yoghurt in muslin overnight.  Somehow, I have just never done it.   

The Foraging

My shopping list written, I head down to Lygon Street for canelloni pasta and spinach and tomatoes and milk (and, oh what the hell, ricotta, just in case) and nutmeg.  We are so lucky in Carlton.  There's Donnini's Pasta for, and Gewurzhaus for whole nutmeg, King & Godfree or DOC for ricotta.  (Yes, already I'm too short time for the Cook's Tip.  Next time.)  If only Helen was open on a Sunday.   I have to go to Brunswick for fresh tomatoes, but use the opportunity to give Our Geriatric Whippets a run in Princes Park en route.  More about Our Geriatric Whippets later no doubt.

It makes so much sense to do the recipes involving fresh basil and tomato during the summer while they're in season.

It's harvest time for the basil plants growing on my terrace.  And the Entrepreneur has eggs from Our Dear Friend in Ballarat, who she visited last week.  They are have chook poo and bum fluff feathers adhered to the shells.  Clearly very very fresh.

Cook the sauce
for 10 minutes

The Cooking

First, the sauce.  Susan gives a Cook's Tip to peel the tomatoes by making a small cut in the skin, covering them with boiling water for a few minutes to make the skins easy to remove.  I turn to the known and trusted Stephanie for alternatives who has 3 methods, one of which is to use a vegetable peeler, which I do.

The tomatoes then go into a blender to be liquidised.

I tear the basil.  I don't cut it, I tear it.  Because Susan and every other cook book author says to.  Why? Has anyone done empirical tests to check that it really makes a difference?  Because tearing is a lot harder than chopping and I keep on dropping whole leaves into the bowl.

The sauce 10 minutes later

The Entrepreneur and the Architect separately comment on how good it smells.  To get a good cooking smell going on, all you need to do is tear up some basil.  I could stop now.

A clove of garlic fried in olive oil until golden, then half the basil and all the tomato in with a bit of salt.

Susan says cook the sauce for 10 minutes.  She's less clear on how hard to cook it.  I go for a big simmer.

I use the time while the sauce is cooking to turn to page 101 and start on the cannelloni.  

Nutmeg

Deja vu!

Ricotta post-sieving

I immediately recall that I used to make this recipe all the time as a student.  But with bought sauce, of course, not my own creation.  When my Architect comes through the kitchen again, he too says 'Oh it's that recipe'.   

It was one of our favourites.

And of course, very easy.

Take some frozen spinach and cook it.  Squeeze out the water.  Finely chop it.  Pass the ricotta through a sieve.

Ricotta mix completo!

I always think this will be hard and time-consuming but it's not.  Just force it through with a wooden spoon and it emerges out the other side all fluffy and fine.  Mix in some parmesan, an egg, an extra yolk and some grated nutmeg.

The trickiest part is getting the mixture into the cannelloni tubes, and really it's not that tricky.  

In the old days, we used to cook lasagne sheets.  Not instant lasagne, the other sort that you boil.  Just like all the other pastas.  Then we'd lay all the cooked lasagne sheets out on clean tea towels, put some mixture in each one, roll them up and place them in the oven-proof dish to be baked.  From distant foggy memory I recall that using that method, you don't have to be too fussy about covering the pasta completely with the sauce because the pasta is already cooked.

Average approximately 1
  minute per tube

Not today though.  I have instant cannelloni of course.  As far as I know, there is only instant cannelloni. 

I use a pate-type knife to fill the tubes.  It holds as much ricotta mixture as a teaspoon and is pleasingly manoeuvrable and easy to poke the ricotta mixture into the tubes etc etc.

I took some footage of my methodology, and timed myself filling each tube.  They take about a minute each, so I was interrupted but the timer for the sauce going off.

After 10 minutes, the sauce is denser and darker and there is much less of it.  Will it cover my cannelloni?  I turn it off and add the rest of the basil.

Tubes filled

Tomato and Fresh Basil Sauce completo!

I fill the tubes until all the ricotta mix was used up.  What else could I do with it.  Now I have more tubes than Susan says I will, and insufficient sauce to cover them.  

It's important that the cannelloni tubes are completely submerged under the sauce.  Any exposed bits won't cook, but will remain hard and chewy and the Entrepreneur and the Architect won't be happy.  As I have too many tubes, I put the extra ones into a separate little baking dish, open a jar of pre-made tomato pasta sauce and pour it over the top.

Sprinkle parmesan cheese over both.  Into the oven for 20 minutes at 200 C and voila!

Ready to go in the oven...

... and left overs before it's even cooked!

The Verdict

'Delicious Sue!'  They both say that because it is.  The nutmeg really makes it.

And a couple of nights later when I'm too lazy to cook I eat the pre-made sauce-topped serve. 

Baked

... and devoured

Want to try this at home?

Pomodoro e Basilico

675g ripe tomatoes

1 clove garlic

bunch fresh basil

olive oil

salt

50g grated Parmesan

1. Peel and crush the tomatoes or blend them briefly
2. Peel the garlic and cut it into a few pieces
3. Pick the basil leaves off the stalks and tear them up
4. Coat the base of a large fry pan with olive oil
5. When the oil's hot, add garlic and fry till golden
6. Add half the basil and salt to taste
7. Cook for about 10 minutes until the sauce becomes denser and darker
8. Turn off the heat and add the rest of the basil
9. Serve on pasta (spag, penne or rigatoni) topped with pasta

Cannelloni con Ricotta e Spinaci

300g frozen whole leaf spinach

400g ricotta

50g grated Parmesan

1 egg

1 egg yolk

grated nutmeg

cannelloni tubes

1. Cook the spinach, squeeze out the water then chop or blend it
2. Force the ricotta through a sieve and add the egg, egg yolk, spinach, Parmesan and nutmeg, mixing it thoroughly
3. Fill the tubes with the ricotta mix and arrange them in an ovenproof dish
4. Pour the Pomodoro e Basilico sauce over the top and sprinkle with more Parmesan
5. Bake at 200C for about 20 minutes