If you are not a fan of garlic forget about this one. Although I must remind you that cooked garlic is a lot less intense than raw garlic when served in a dish. I call this ‘lazy’ because I threw this together in about 30 minutes, baked it for 20 minutes and we ate it in less than 10 minutes, on a day that we needed a pasta fix.
Vince’s easy and deliciously garlicy lazy cannelloni ripieni
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 250 g lasagne sheets 14 sheets
- 400 g minced beef steak
- 10 garlic cloves
- 2 x 100g fresh spinach leaves
- 100 g fresh breadcrumbs
- West Australian extra virgin olive oil EVOO
- 2 x 375ml cans chopped tomato
- grated Parmesan
- 2 eggs
- West Australian organic lake salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- water
Instructions
- To prepare your pasta filling, mix your mince, eggs, breadcrumbs, half of the spinach, 50g parmesan, 50ml EVOO, four cloves of thinly sliced garlic and a touch of salt and pepper to taste, in a blender. Try to achieve a well-mixed rough paste (about two to three minutes of blending). While you are doing this, boil a large pot of salted water and cook your lasagne sheets until they are tender to roll. Drain them and put them into cold water until cool. Rest the pasta sheets on paper or cloth towels to dry both sides, but not too dry.
- Now, in a large frypan add some EVOO and thinly slice six cloves of garlic. As soon as the garlic starts to fry add your tomatoes and cook with the lid on, stirring occasionally.
- Add a little salt and pepper and cook till reduced by half, but do not allow it to dry out and burn. Now that it is thick and tasty add 375ml water and the other half of the spinach and bring to a boil, mixing well so the spinach wilts. Then turn off and set aside.
- Put a thumb thick sausage of the filling onto one end of each pasta sheet and roll up. Do not be a perfectionist, the filling should not be even and the pasta roll should be loose not tight. Put a little of the tomato sauce to wet the bottom of a rectangle baking dish, then arrange the pasta rolls in the tray side by side but not tight. Fill any gaps with bits of pasta rolls if you have to. Cover all the pasta rolls with your liquid tomato and spinach sauce, sprinkle with parmesan, cover with alfoil and bake in a pre-heated oven at 225°C for 20 minutes.
- Rest for 10 minutes and serve. Oh, what fantastic foreplay to a fantastic night for you.
Buon appetito!
Vince is the ambassador of Mondos Butchers located at 824 Beaufort Street, Inglewood.
They are open Tuesday to Friday 9am – 5.30pm Saturday 9am to 2pm.
Phone 9371 6350 or visit www.mondo.net.au
