Stuffed shells with garlic bread

stuffed shells it's one of those classics that led me as a child to believe that all italian-american entrees were just different configurations of pasta red sauce and ricotta cheese i haven't had it in years and i'm so excited step one is get a giant pot of sauce going you could get away with half the quantity i'm making right now but it's always good to make extra and freeze it i'm just chopping up two big onions doesn't matter what kind and then i'll peel and chop at least half a head of garlic nice big pot over medium-high heat tons of olive oil on the bottom and in goes the onions i'll just stir those pretty frequently until they soften and start to go brown maybe 10 minutes in between stirs i can start opening three or four 28 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes each of those is about 800 grams when you need them you're gonna need them fast so get at least one open in advance onions are browning and this is one i usually put in my garlic you could put it in from the start but it'll burn if you don't stir constantly then i'll put in one of these little six ounce cans of tomato paste 170 grams and let it fry for a sec i knew i should have been using a wooden spoon the spatula just is not rigid enough to bash that stuff around and right when you're terrified that tomato paste is going to burn like that ah in goes the can of tomatoes that you were careful to open in advance scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze and i'll put in two or three more of these big cans and you certainly don't have to do this but it's nice to put in a glass of wine red or white grind in a bunch of pepper and whatever dried herbs you want i've got oregano thyme and dried basil big pinch of salt to start with and i think i'll pour in more olive oil i like lots of oil in my sauce stir that up and then you can just simmer this over medium-low heat while you do everything else just stir it frequently like in between every other task you do you let it sit for too long the stuff on the bottom will burn next we do the cheese filling i've got a pound and a half of ricotta cheese here 680 grams that is i do think full fat ricotta tastes better but part skim is all they had at the store it's fine we can make it smoother and meltier with a pound of mozzarella 450 grams and i'm using fresh motts but any kind is fine and to give it some stronger flavor i've got 7 ounces or 200 grams of pecorino romano this is the hard grating cheese that i grew up with as opposed to parmesan these big sloppy red sauce italian-american dishes were generally originated by immigrants from southern italy like the ragusas and pecorino is popular in the south pecorino is basically parmesan but made with sheep's milk instead of cow's milk and then when you get down to the tiny square that you can't grate anymore you could eat it or throw it in your sauce it needs a stir anyway it always needs a stir take your mozzarella and grate it up as fine as you can some people set some of that mozzarella aside to melt over the top at the end i don't like to do that i will grab some of that pecorino and save it for dusting at the table before i get rid of my grater i'm going to grate a couple more cloves of garlic you could chop them but i think for the cheese filling i want the garlic as fine as possible and you don't need much because it isn't going to get cooked very much all this goes into a nice big mixing bowl and you may think this seems like a lot of cheese but this will make the right amount of filling for a one pound bag of shells you'll see in goes my pound and a half of ricotta ricotta being a cottage cheese type product that is recooked from the whey leftover from other cheese making it's relatively lean high protein which makes it work as the primary bulk of this whole dish speaking of protein in goes some eggs i'm doing four which is maybe kind of a lot you don't have to use any but it makes the filling set into something more cakey without the egg the filling is more crumbly tends to fall off your fork when you're trying to eat a huge amount of black pepper but no salt the pecorino is salty enough in there last thing is to chop up some fresh herbs this is parsley i'm just pulling it off the stems bits of thin stem are fine but thick ones i try to leave behind same deal with this bunch of basil and then i'll just mow through that a lot of people put blanched spinach in the filling you could do that frozen spinach works great for that just drain it thoroughly before you put it in again i'll grab some of this and reserve it for garnishing at the table the rest goes in the filling and now you just get in there and smash it all up get a nice homogeneous mixture it feels almost like a dough by the time you're done with it and there you can see that i've got a big pot of water coming to a boil for my shells while i wait i can scan my grocery receipt with the sponsor of this video fetch rewards whom i'll now briefly thank fetch is a free app you download you sign 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points with your first receipt thank you fetch now salt that water jumbo shells really big ones smaller ones are just impossible to fill these are from italy so it's a 500 gram package which is a little over one pound and it says they're cooked for 15 minutes well then i'm going to boil them for maybe 12 minutes yes it'd be nice if i had a bigger pot but i'm using my big one for the sauce it'll be fine as long as i stir these to make sure they don't stick to the bottom you want to boil these until they're pliable and you can fill them but they should still be a little crunchy because they're going to cook more in the oven three minutes less than the package directions usually works great drain them into a colander and then i would rinse them with cold water to stop their cooking to rinse off the starch that would cause them to stick together and also to cool them down so you can handle them my sauce is looking nice and it's time to finish it up give it a taste if your instinct is to stir in a little sugar try stirring in some more salt first salt really offsets the bitter notes in canned tomatoes though there's no shame in putting in a pinch of sugar too that's clemenza's trick how's poly and these tomatoes i had were pretty thick to begin with so i'm actually going to loosen this back up again with some water you could hit this with a stick blender too if you wanted it smoother i like it chunky my oven is heating to 400 fahrenheit 200 c and into a baking dish goes a good layer of tomato sauce enough so that once all the shells are in here displacing liquid they'll be up to their shoulders in sauce grab your parboiled shells and your filling some people load the filling in with a spoon i think that's a huge pain some people use a piping bag that'd work great but i hate loading piping bags i honestly see no problem with just smashing this in with your fingers then i like to position them cheese side up in the sauce so the cheese can brown a little bit here lauren's going to do a few it helps if you kind of smoosh them to expand that opening some people top this with some more tomato sauce and then some mozzarella i feel like that just turns this into a lasagna if i'm going to go through the work of filling individual shells i want to see individual shells i don't want this all to bake into a single mass some people bake it uncovered i like to cover it with foil and then let these steam cook in there for 15-20 minutes until they're bubbly and hey let's go full-on jersey shore and make some garlic bread with this the key is honestly just to use a huge amount of butter not one but two sticks of butter i softened in the microwave on low power that's half a pound 225 grams half a head of garlic chopped goes in there a whole bunch of pepper and then enough salt to make this taste a little too salty it's seasoning the bread remember this was salted butter so i don't need much more salt you could mix in herbs too but i prefer to sprinkle them on at the end that's enough garlic butter for a big baguette here's half of it cut in half and then you gotta really slather it on you want there to be enough to melt down through the bread as it cooks put it on tray the butter is gonna leak when the shells are cooked i'll just pull the foil off and turn on the broiler aka the grill and get a little color on the top if you just bake it uncovered the whole way i think it tends to come out kind of dry there you go i'll throw my garlic bread under the broiler for a few minutes just until it's brown and crispy some herbs on top chop into chunks nice and crispy since i made extra sauce i can kind of sauce the plate before i put on the shells if i have bread i like to have some extra sauce that i can mop up now i had 25 shells in that pan enough for four or five people to have a big dinner but i had enough filling and intact shells for 40 or 50 additional shells two of these pans cover them and freeze them without baking them first then all you gotta do when you get home from work is throw the frozen pan covered into a cold oven turn the heat on 400 fahrenheit 200c and walk away 45 minutes to an hour later it's both thawed and cooked be careful not to overcook the filling it'll get gritty it should be bubbling but still look kind of wet just pull the foil off turn on the broiler for a few minutes and there's dinner for whatever reason baked pasta dishes seem to get even better when they have been reheated now while i often describe italian american classics like this as big and sloppy like the tank top clad individuals who often prepare them i make an effort to keep mine kind of tight reduce the sauce nice and dry and don't put on too much the way my grandma would make this the plate would be flooded with orange water i like a drier firmer texture but you do you and one thing you can do is pre-order one of my summon forth the upside down bear t-shirts available on my bonfire store for just one more week as of the posting of this 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Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 983,796

Rating: 4.9508061 out of 5

Keywords: stuffed shells, shells an cheese, Conchiglie, red sauce, tomato sauce, marinara sauce

Id: ZcgmTjbV1gs

Length: 8min 58sec (538 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/titanpancake]

I remember being served this in my hs cafeteria and it was repulsive, but this looks really good, might make it.

[u/The-Bigger-Fish]

"I like it chonky."

-Adam Ragusea, 2020

[u/hiensenberg]

gonna make this and add ground sausage to the ricotta. this looks AMAZING.

[u/Mako_sato_ftw]

g🅰rlic 🅱read

[u/Gregsquatch]

I'm definitely going to make this oh man