My resident hunka-hunka burning love secretly bought me a subscription to Food and Wine magazine. (Yes, I know…I’m Mormon and don’t drink alcohol, BUT I do eat.) The first issue arrived on Saturday and there was this insane photo on the cover for stuffed shell pasta. Both Hunka-Hunka and I gasped and I hurriedly turned to page 140. There it was…pasta insanity in a 9 x 13 with cheese and tomato sauce and five easy steps (that’s magazine steps, not true-life cooking steps). I promised that man of mine that I would be making said pasta insanity on Monday night for dinner.
I kept my word. I am now dripping in diamonds and will be picking up my new Mercedes tomorrow morning. It’s just some of the percs for being married to a man who adores food me and appreciates a good meal in his easy chair the finer things in life.
Dripping in diamonds? A Mercedes? Get real. Try dripping in sweat and a 1995 minivan. hahahahahahaha… that’s really funny! True, too.
I’ll tell you something else that is really funny. John went nuts for the creamy marinara sauce. “Wow! This is a really good sauce,” he said as he stared greedily at the sauce remnants on my plate. “Did you dip your bread in it?”. He sounded concerned that maybe I wasn’t appreciating the sauce’s full potential. What he wasn’t understanding was that, hello, I prepared the sauce so OF COURSE I knew the sauce very well.
Later in the evening when we were cleaning up the kitchen, John mentioned the sauce again, remarked on the amazing recipe in the magazine, and proceeded to pour some of the sauce into a container so that he could take it to work the next day for lunch. He was making all kinds of quiet, excited yummy noises planning his lunch; four stuffed shells, extra sauce, and some pieces of crusty french bread for dipping in said sauce.
One more sauce comment and I couldn’t help myself. “John,” I finally said, “that’s just my regular sauce except with some cream in it.”
He gawked, looking from me to the pan. “You didn’t use the sauce in the recipe? I thought they gave a recipe for it.”
With an air of complete snobbery and a dismissive flick of my hand, I said “I like mine better.” Oh my goodness, John grabbed me and kissed me forever and we danced around the kitchen like two young lovers while John sang beautiful love songs to me.
Not. Double not.
What really happened was that John said something like “Oh!” and smiled really big, which is the same thing as kissing me forever and dancing around the kitchen like two young lovers and singing beautiful love songs. The exact. same. thing. because that’s how things are around here. That’s the way things are between kindred spirits in the kitchen who have been married for going on 32 years…when there’s dishes to be done…and it’s late…and there’s nothing else to watch on TV.
Okay. Enough of that malarkey. Here’s the info on the recipe. Despite the fact that this was a simple recipe, I was a little nervous to make it. It came out of a fancy magazine, after all. The pasta shells are stuffed with an unusual mixture of fennel, sweet onion, radicchio, ricotta, and Italian Fontina.
FYI: I didn’t know this, but there is Italian Fontina and Danish Fontina. When I asked the cheese monger at a local “has everything” grocery store for Fontina, she asked if I wanted Italian or Danish. Without missing a beat, even though I was ignorant of the existence of more than one type of Fontina, I confidently stated that I wanted the Italian Fontina. No way was I going to appear clueless in front of the cheese monger. Plus, I was making a pasta dish with Italian types of ingredients, so it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. Further FYI: Italian Fontina has a hard rind on it due to the aging process. (Sounds anatomically correct. ;)). Danish Fontina, on the other hand, has a red wax rind and is softer and milder in flavor.
The recipe in Food and Wine allows for use of a bottled marinara, but a recipe for a good basic marinara is also included. I am partial to my own marinara, so I really and truly did make my own sauce. Because of the nature of the other ingredients in this dish, I chose to use a can of good quality whole San Marzano tomatoes and also a good quality tomato sauce and tomato paste. As much as I wish that things were otherwise, there is a definite taste difference between the pricier Italian types of tomato products and the 0.79 specials that I so often use for my general cooking needs.
In short, this is a recipe for dinner guests; not for the family dinner table. Please don’t be offended by that statement. This is a pricey little dish and the flavors are more adult in nature. Granted, there are some children with more refined palates, but in general a good plate of spaghetti will suffice for your offspring.
Ricotta-and-Fontina-Stuffed Shells with Fennel and Radicchio
Ingredients
For the Marinara
- 1 large onion, finely diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 can (28 ounces) whole San Marzano tomatoes
- 1 can (12 ounces) tomato sauce
- 1 can (6 ounces) quality tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
For the Filling--(Recipe by Food and Wine magazine)
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 pounds fennel bulbs, thinly sliced
- 1 medium sweet onion, thinly sliced
- 1-2 medium heads of radicchio (10 ounces total, chopped)
- 12 ounces jumbo pasta shells
- 2 cups fresh ricotta cheese
- 6 ounces weight Italian Fontina cheese, shredded
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
- 2 large eggs, beaten
Instructions
- *Preheat the oven to 375-degrees F.
For the Marinara
- In a large, deep skillet heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, then lower the heat to medium low. Cook, stirring as needed, until onions are translucent and golden. If ingredients begin to stick, add a little water, stir, and continue to cook until onions are translucent.
- Add the whole tomatoes, with juice. Break up tomatoes well with a wooden spoon or other tomato breaker-upper of your choice. 🙂
- Stir in the tomato sauce, tomato paste, basil, oregano, and sugar. If sauce appears too thick, add about 3/4 cup water. I simply put some water in the tomato can to rinse down the sides and added that to the pan. The sauce will reduce during cooking, but don't let it get too thick.
- Add salt and pepper, to taste. Cover and cook over medium low or low heat for about 20-30 minutes, stirring as needed. Taste periodically to check for seasonings. Remember that as the sauce becomes more concentrated, it will taste saltier.
- Turn off the heat and stir in the cream. Cover and keep warm until ready to use.
For the Filling
- In a large, deep skillet, melt the butter in the oil, then add the fennel and onion. Over moderate heat, cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Add a little water as needed to keep the vegetables from scorching.
- Add the radicchio and cook until very soft, about 10 minutes. Again, add water as needed.
- If cooking liquid is present when the vegetables are done, drain cooking liquid from vegetables. Put cooked vegetables in a large mixing bowl and set aside to cool.
For the Pasta Shells
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Do not over-cook.
- Drain. Cool under running water, then gently pat shells dry. I did not need to pat the shells dry. I simply turned each one in a colander so that the water would drain out by itself.
Finishing
- To the bowl of cooked vegetables, fold the ricotta, 1 cup of the Fontina, and the parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Taste; correct seasonings as needed. Stir in the eggs AFTER the filling has been seasoned to taste.
- Pour 1 1/2 cups of the marinara sauce into a 9- x 13-inch baking dish. Stuff each shell with a slightly rounded tablespoon of the filling. Place the shells as close together as possible on top of the sauce in the baking dish.
- Drizzle 1 cup of the remaining sauce on top. Sprinkle the remaining Fontina over the top.
- Bake for about 40 minutes, until golden. Let rest for 15 minutes. Serve the remaining sauce, warmed, on the side.
Notes
Nutrition
I totally want to try your marinara! And your play-by-play with your husband’s reactions was priceless. =)
LOL…I have such fun at my husband’s expense. He is such a good sport about it, too. Bless his heart.
The recipe sounds good but what I really want is to make your sauce. I do have a question though. You normally would not put the cream in it right? I think you did it just for this recipe but wanted to double check.
Right. I only put the cream in the sauce for this recipe. Otherwise, it is just pretty much my run of the mill marinara sauce that I put on pasta dishes such as spaghetti or lasagna. Sometimes I’ll add seasoned hamburger or Italian sausage if I want a meat sauce on my pasta dishes. It’s very basic and very versatile. Sometimes I toss in a pinch of hot pepper flakes to give it some pizzazz; sometimes I use fresh herbs, if I have them, instead of using dry herbs; I often use fire-roasted tomatoes because I like the flavor they bring to the sauce. When I want an excellent flavored sauce, I use a good quality brand of San Marzano tomato.
Being of Danish heritage, I didn’t know we had a Fontina – LOL! Good for you for picking the Italian type – I’m sure I would too 🙂
This sounds awesome! I was kind of hoping you were dripping in diamonds driving your Benz, though.
Yeah, me too, but I would really miss driving my minivan and I’m pretty sure that the diamonds would look a little funny with my faded jeans and T-shirt. However, I used to have a little part-time job in the evenings at a craft studio and my boss would come to work wearing pearls with her paint-stained, holey sweats. So, maybe the diamonds and Benz would work. Shrug.
Dear Terri,
You are hilarious and with such a good looking pasta and magical sauce, I am not surprise what John said and did with all those love songs. I can imagine this dish would be even better the next day, with or without fresh crusty bread!
Thanks, Chopin. And yes, this WAS even better the second day. It was my turn to say, “Oh my gosh, John. This is so good!” Then I sang and danced around the kitchen and kissed the sauce.
Oh, Terri, this looks amazing! But, as you cautioned, I am cooking for a houseful of kids who, no doubt, would prefer spaghetti and meatballs. And it is hard to spend the money on good ingredients only to have kids whine and turn up their noses. (Last night’s pasta with pears and gorgonzola was not well received.) So I’ll save this recipe for someday, but I will try your sauce one of these days–with the good tomatoes. Where do you buy them? Oh, and if you ever make this again and just happen to have an extra shell sitting around, I’d be happy to taste it for you! 🙂
I think that our families get their crowns in heaven as they endure our kitchen experiments! LOL. My kids have still never forgiven me for my culinary forays with dried beans. hahahahaha…
I also made this recipe from Food and Wine magazine. This is the only way I make stuffed shells now. Excellent !
I agree, Kristin. This is a great recipe from Food and Wine. I had a subscription to the magazine and every time it arrived, I wanted to make pretty much every recipe they had!