Date I made this recipe:
Christmas Eve, 2014
Published by:
HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 0-06-018261-X
Recipe: Baked Stuffed Tubes with Ragu (Millerighi
Imbottiti al Ragu) – p. 191-193
Well, here we are, we are here: Christmas Eve. Time to get out the Italian cookbooks!
As is traditional in my family, I made an Italian meal for
Christmas Eve dinner. And sure, I could
have gone with my traditional spaghetti and meatballs like my mother made
(except in years the church said "No" to meat in which case it was
spaghetti with meatless sauce) or my Aunt Rose's homemade manicotti but that
defeats the purpose of collecting and then cooking from cookbooks, no?
Exactly. But still, I
was craving something with red sauce (never white – gaaa!) and some kind of
meat. And for that, I needed to
temporarily ignore any cookbooks focusing on the northern regions of Italy with
their white sauces and gnocchi and whatnot, and look south. Although Naples ,
housed within the region of Campania , is not
the southernmost part of Italy
proper, it is known for red sauces and I'm all about a red sauce. Besides, red is a fitting color for
Christmas, is it not?
Baked Ziti (p. 190) was also considered as I love baked
ziti. My cousin, Jerry, had a mean hand
with this dish, but while good, it was too simple for what I had in mind and
didn't contain meat.
In many Sicilian and Italian families, Christmas Eve signals
the Feast of the Seven Fishes and I thought about making "a" (as in
singular) fish dish (let's not get carried away) but nothing in this book
floated my boat (pun intended). I was
"this close" to making squid (calamari) but didn't know if Coastal
Seafoods carried any and didn't want to deal with their tiny parking lot just
to find out. And so I passed on that.
So with tax, license and much reading, I decided on the
stuffed shell recipe. Besides, it
contained Italian sausage and I ask you – what's not to like about that? I love Italian sausage. With peppers.
Italian sausage with peppers, eaten on a boardwalk along the Jersey Shore
And so it came to pass that pasta shells stuffed with a
sausage and cheese mixture would do the trick for Christmas Eve and it
did...sort of.
Faithful readers know that I get mighty irked by what I
consider to be incomplete or worse, useless directions. And right out of the blocks, I knew I was
going to be challenged by this recipe.
So let's break it down:
Step 1 - cook the sausages and onions in a pot over low
heat. Seems easy, right? And it was except I could tell that the
author expected the sausages to yield way more fat/oil than they did and so
instead of nicely sautéing the onion, I came close to burning it. And considering this was step 1 out of 14,
this was not a good start.
Here's an observation:
we in this country have a fat fetish.
We don't like fat on any of our meats anymore and so if you head to the
meat section of a grocery store, you will find not only fat-free pork chops and
steaks but "less fat" (equals less flavor) ground meats. And now I have a sneaking suspicion that they
aren't making sausages like they used to because no way did those sausages
release anywhere near the fat they should.
Then the next step:
Before the onions start to stick to the pot – about 30 minutes – add the
wine. Had I waited 30 minutes for this
step, I'd be looking at a charred pot. So
I added the wine about 10 minutes into the process and besides, is there a bad
time to add wine to anything? I think
not!
Okay then, after this, I was supposed to let the wine simmer
briskly and nearly evaporate for about 5 minutes. Again, that wine evaporated all right, in
about the time it took me to rinse off a spoon.
And if I was a novice cook, that would be one thing but I'm not and so
this irked.
Next, you add the tomato paste, water, salt and pepper and
then gently simmer this mixture for 1 ½ hours which, of course, was way too
long – again! But my favorite part of
this recipe had to be this: "You
should have 1 2/3 to 2 cups of thin
ragu."
No. I had a thick
ragu and at best a yield of 4 tablespoons which even math-challenged me could
figure out is not 2 cups. Dammit! And folks, for the first time in a long time,
I cannot even tell you how to "fix" this. Maybe add more water...or not...maybe add
some oil to the pan when browning the sausages...or not. I don't know.
I added a bit more wine to finish up my bottle but since the wine is
meant to (nearly) evaporate, that didn't help with the volume (taste was
another matter). So in my professional
pasta sauce-making opinion, I don't think it would hurt to add some crushed
tomatoes to this dish, even if the recipe didn't call for it. And so there you
go: more tomatoes + more wine = passable
sauce. More wine = very passable
sauce.
And so at day's end, the only thing I did know for sure
(Just.like.Oprah) is that
in a pinch, Trader
Joe's marinara sauce will do nicely!
And thank goodness we had some on hand because there was a strong chance
that by the time I got done with this sauce, TJ's would have closed for
Christmas Eve. So hooray for them!
Also, the instructions said to strain the sauce, pressing
the basil leaves and any solid onion against a strainer, then discard the
basil. And...no. Because if I had discarded the basil, half
the sauce would have gone with it. And I
was already dealing with a sauce deficit so...
FORTUNATELY, the sausage portion of our program saved the
day as it was so tender and good, it was ridiculous. And when it was finely chopped and mixed with
ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese? Divine!
And as is usual in my family, I had to stop myself from eating half the
sausage and cheeses before I put them in the recipe. And you know, it could be argued that I was
only evening up the ratio of available sauce to the cheese and meat mixture. In
fact, that's it exactly!
This dish can be made with either manicotti shells or jumbo
shells and I used the jumbo shells. I
make my own manicotti shells (they are easy to do) but they are soft and
wouldn't hold up to the "stuffing" very well so jumbo shells it
was.
So all in all, I got my red sauce (miniscule as it was) and
meat fix on and the entire dish was really good, plus it looked so pretty and
that's a plus if making it for a crowd. The
sauce (what I tasted of it) was good but a tad too salty for my tastes. I think a smidgen of sugar added to the
tomato paste would help alleviate that problem.
So here you go folks, with more "Ann's Notes"
(i.e. helpful hints) than I think I've ever included for any recipe I've made
so far. Brace yourself and make sure you
have enough wine for the sauce and some for you. Couldn't hurt, might help.
Merry Christmas Eve!
Baked Stuffed Tubes
with Ragu = serves 6 to 8; makes 12 manicotti, or 32 jumbo shells
For the ragu
12 ounces sweet Italian sausage
½ cup finely diced onion
½ cup dry white wine
2 ½ cups water
¼ cup tomato paste
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
For the filling
15 ounces (1 container) ricotta
4 ounces mozzarella, cut into ¼ -inch cubes
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parigian-Reggiano
½ teaspoon salt or to taste
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Plus
¾ cup freshly grated Parmigian-Reggiano
8 to 12 ounces pasta (manicotti shells or jumbo shells works
best)
To prepare the ragu:
- With the point of a knife, prick each sausage 2 or 3 times. In a 2 ½- to 3-quart saucepan or stovetop casserole, over medium-low heat, combine the onion and the sausages. Cover the pot and, stirring a couple of times with a wooden spoon, cook until some liquid and fat begins to collect at the bottom of the pan, about 10 minutes. (Ann's Note: add about a tablespoon of oil to the pan or you will risk burning the whole thing. There's just not enough fat in the sausages to cook the onions properly.)
- Uncover the pot and raise the heat slightly. Cook, stirring frequently, until most of the onions are deep brown and beginning to stick to the pot, about 30 minutes. (Ann's Note: 30 minutes is too long as you will risk burning the onions. Check in every 10 minutes.) The sausages will not brown much. Before any onions burn, add the wine and stir well, scraping the bottom of the pot to deglaze it. Let the wine simmer briskly and nearly evaporate, stirring a few times, about 5 minutes. (Ann's Note: again, keep your eye on the pot as the wine evaporated pretty quickly.)
- Stir in the water, the tomato paste, and the salt and pepper. Cover the pan, increase the heat to medium, and bring the liquid to a gentle simmer. Keeping the pan covered, adjust the heat so the liquid simmers very gently for 1 ½ hours. (Ann's Note: I know I sound like a broken record, but these times are way off. If you go for 1 ½ hours, you will have less sauce than I did and that means "not much!" I simmered it for 60 minutes and even that was too long.)
- Uncover the pan, raise the heat slightly, and let the ragu simmer a little more rapidly so the sauce thickens and reduces a little, about 20 minutes. (Ann's Note: You know what I'm going to say about the 20 minutes so....Think "10.") Let cool slightly.
- Remove the sausages and set aside. Stain the sauce, pressing the basil leaves and any solid onion with the back of a wooden spoon against the strainer to retrieve every last bit of sauce. Discard the basil. You should have 1 2/3 to 2 cups of thin ragu. (Ann's Note: Hahahahahahahahaha. This yield is not even close. And don't strain or you'll really be crying at the yield. And then thank your lucky stars that this is the last step involving the sauce.)
To make the filling:
- In a bowl, combine the ricotta, the mozzarella, and 2 tablespoons of Parmigiano.
- Leave the casings on, finely chop the sausages from the ragu. Add the sausage, meat, salt and pepper to the cheeses. Mix very well.
To assemble and bake the dish:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Cook the pasta very al dente in plenty of boiling, salted water. (Ann's Note: I cooked the jumbo shells for 8 minutes; the package said 10.)
- Drain the pasta and place it in a bowl of very cold water. Let the pasta cool. Drain the pasta again and arrange it on a kitchen towel. If holding it a while, cover it with a damp towel until you are ready to fill it. (The pasta can be cooked while the ragu is cooking.)
- Spread 3 tablespoons of ragu over the bottom of a 9- by 13-inch baking pan. (Ann's Note: This will use up most of your sauce, oh well.)
- Fill each large tube of pasta (i.e. manicotti) with ¼ to 1/3 cup filling, or each jumbo shell with about 1 tablespoon of filling. Is using shells, close the shells around the filling. (Ann's "Rant:" Getting some of the shells open in the first place was like trying to shuck a clam i.e. not fun. So closing them was near impossible. At this point, I just started swearing – in English and Italian!) Place the pasta in the dish as each is filled.
- Spoon on the remaining ragu (hahahaha), coating the pasta well and letting the sauce drip into the pan. Sprinkle evenly and thoroughly with the ¾ cup of Parmigiano, which will seem like a lot. (Ann's Note: it will seem like a lot, especially in comparison to the ragu. And by the way, this would be a great time to a) break out your favorite jar of pasta sauce for use with this recipe and b) pour a cocktail. Or...several.
- Bake for about 20 minutes, or until an "inviting golden crust" has formed. Serve immediately.
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