Cheesy pasta bake
Serves 4
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 2 hours
Another twist with bolognese sauce, this time with large pasta shells stuffed with cheese. Don’t let the long cook time put you off, most of the time is hands off.
Ingredients
750/800g beef mince
2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
250ml red wine
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 tins of tomatoes chopped or pulped
1 tsp mixed Italian herbs
1 tbsp sugar
1 beef stock pot
Parmesan - either rind or 1 tbsp Parmesan plus 100g more, grated
250g Conchiglioni pasta (very large pasta shells)
250g mascarpone
250g mozzarella, cut into small chunks
Salt
Pepper
I like to buy steak, chunk it up and mince it myself because you can put the exact amount of fat you want and you can pick whatever meat you like the look of the most and, the thing I like the most, there is never any risk of getting gristle
If you are mincing your own meat then cut the meat into chunks and season with salt, pepper and the herbs before you mince it.
Method
Put 1 tbsp oil in a pan that can go into the oven and cook the mince over a fairly high heat until brown - expect this to take 15-20 minutes. You want to cook it until all of the juice that has come out of the meat has almost disappeared. Add the remaining tbsp of olive oil and the onion and cook for a few minutes until translucent, add the garlic and continue to cook for a few more minutes. The meat will be browning and caramelising on the bottom which is what you want.
Add the red wine and scrape the caramelised bits from the bottom. Cook for a few minutes until the wine has almost gone and add the tomato purée. Mix well and cook for a few minutes - this is to remove the raw tomato taste. Add the tins of tomatoes, herbs, stock pot and sugar. Mix thoroughly, add your Parmesan and cook on a medium heat for at least an hour until it has reduced.
20 minutes before serving preheat the oven to 180c and bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook your pasta according to the packet instructions - that being said, I find that this pasta takes a few minutes longer than the packet recommends but this is personal choice.
While the pasta is cooking, combine the mascarpone, mozzarella and parmesan, season with black pepper and carefully mix.
When your pasta is just cooked, drain and cool down with cold water. Drain well. You now want to take the cheese mixture and fill the pasta shells.
Remove the parmesan rind from the sauce, and put into a large oven dish. Top the Bolognese sauce carefully with the shells ensuring the shells all remain upwards so that the cheese does not melt out of the shells. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden.