Jackson Jambalaya

 I love Pasta! Did you know, if you use the Italian word for the shape and style of pasta you use in a dish, Folks will think you are some kind of hotshot cook? At that point, your meal will be halfway toward a successful effort. 

Did you know, there are over 600 varieties of pasta? Let's pause for a few seconds - 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004 ... Oops, now thanks to pasta designer Emilio DeStephanos and the INPNB (Italian National Pasta Naming Board), there are over 601 varieties. My experience with grocery stores is that they seem to carry all of them other than the one I want to use in my dish.

Here, since 1912.

This stuff must be good, because it has dancing Italian guys and a happy family seated at the kitchen table on the labeling and Italian words in several places. Oh, and it also is large shells, which is the shape and size I wanted for this dish.

Here is how I make stuffed shells

Ingredients:

Pasta - Conchiglioni Rigati – 12 medium large shells or 6 large shells.

Tomatoes – 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes in sauce
Onion – 1/2 of a medium onion, cut into two pieces, cooked in sauce and removed
Oregano – 1 Tablespoon
Anchovies – 1/2 of a 2 ounce can
Olive oil – 1 Tablespoon
Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
Black Pepper – 1/4 teaspoon

For Béchamel Sauce:

Butter – 2 Tablespoons
AP Flour – 2 Tablespoons
Black pepper – 1/8 teaspoon
Milk – to achieve a relatively thin sauce

For meat filling:

Beef – 1/2 pound, veal, or ground sirloin, or ground round
Italian Sausage – 1 link, removed from casing and broken into 1/2 inch bits
Onion – 1 1/2 Tablespoons small diced
Green Bell Peppers - 1 1/2 Tablespoons diced
Garlic Salt – 1 Tablespoon
Spinach – 5-7 ounces baby spinach, fresh
Green onions – 3 or 4, sliced tops and white portions
Ricotta Cheese – 7-8 ounces (half of a 15 ounce container)
Parmesan Cheese – 2-3 ounces, shredded
Egg – 1 large egg
Black Pepper – 1/4 teaspoon

Cheese topping for filled shells:

Mozzarella Cheese – 3 or 4 Tablespoons
Parmesan Cheese - 4 or 5 Tablespoons

Green onion sliced for garnishing the dish

Directions:

Making the Marinara Sauce

Add tomatoes, olive oil, onion, and oregano to a suitable pan. I like to use whole tomatoes in this dish, crushed with my hands. Break the whole tomatoes up and add the salt and black pepper. The tomatoes will break down more as the sauce cooks.

Add 4 anchovies to the sauce as it begins to cook. They will break apart as the sauce cooks and add a nice level of flavor (not fishy at all) to the finished sauce.

Bring the sauce to a low simmer and cook with a lid for maybe 2 hours.

When the sauce is done (thick and bright, remove and discard the onion.

Making the meat filling:

Add 8 ounces of the ground beef (ground veal, ground sirloin, or ground round) to a suitable pan. Season with onion, green peppers, garlic salt, and black pepper. As the beef cooks, break it apart. When it has cooked, add the Italian sausage bits/pieces, and cook them without breaking them apart. As the photos show, I used precooked Italian Sausage left over from some other recipe and stored in the freezer.

The cooked meats go into a mixing bowl to cool.

Cooking the Spinach:

Chop the spinach slightly and cook it in the pan used to cook the meat. There should be a small amount of oil after the meat is removed. It (I Tablespoon) will be used to cook the spinach. When the spinach has yielded all the water and the color has changed to dark green, it is ready. The yield, after the sauté will be about 1/4 cup. When done, add the spinach to the bowl with the meat to cool

Dice 4 green onions and add them to the mixture in the bowl.

After the mixture has cooled, taste for seasoning, then add the ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and an egg. Mix gently to combine ingredients.

Assembling and cooking the dish:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F

The pasta is cooked in salted water until a little before it reaches al dente stage. Follow the directions on the pasta package and pull the shells about a minute early so they will not be overcooked later.

After draining, the shells, hold them in cool water until needed.

Make the béchamel sauce

Add equal parts of AP flour and melted butter to the pan. Cook the flour for a couple of minutes. Note: Béchamel is a white sauce, and the flour should not be cooked until it begins to change color, but it needs to be cooked long enough to take away the raw flour taste.

Add milk to the white roux and stir until you get a medium thick béchamel.

Butter an oven dish, then add some béchamel and marinara sauce to the bottom of the dish. Mix them together slightly.

The shells are slightly overstuffed with the meat stuffing and placed into the oven dish.

Then béchamel is added over each shell. Then marinara is added over the shells, then Mozzarella cheese, then Parmesan cheese

Add 2 Tablespoons of water to the dish to help make steam, then cook in the preheated oven, with a lid. The dish is cooked long enough to cook the egg in the filling and set the sauces. This should take 30 minutes at 350 with a cover and then for 20 minutes with no cover (50 minutes total).

At some point, I diced some green onions to decorate the stuffed shells when plating.

I served this dish with asparagus, poached in lightly salted/buttered water as my side.

Needs a crust of bread.

 

Plated and ready to enjoy,

The leftovers will reheat nicely (in the oven at 275 degrees F, for 30 minutes, covered, with a tablespoon of water). Microwave works OK, too, except it may dry the shells out, so be careful. These were reheated in the oven.

Ciao!

Thanks for looking at my post.
God Bless you.