Last night for dinner I made one of Puneet and my favourite dishes: Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni. We got the recipe from one of Jamie Oliver’s books and over time have tweaked it here and there to our own taste. Anyway, photos speak louder than words so I’ll post the steps in image form and leave you with an ingredient list at the end:
Gather your ingredients
Put a pan on medium-high heat. Add some olive oil + a knob of butter then throw in a couple of cloves worth of crushed garlic, a handful of roughly chopped oregano, some grated nutmeg and Lebanese zataar. Add enough spinach to fill the pan and keep adding more as it wilts until it's all in there
The spinach should look like this when it's wilting. Leave it a little longer then remove to a bowl
Use a large mixing bowl as you'll be adding the ricotta in here later. Leave to cool down while you make your tomato sauce
Add another glug of olive oil, 1 more clove of crushed garlic and then two 400g tins of diced tomatoes. Fill each of them half of the way with water and add that water to the pan. Chop a few basil stalks and throw them on top with a good amount of salt & pepper and a pinch of sugar. Leave to simmer for about 15 minutes on medium, stirring every now and then
While it's simmer you can make your white sauce. Gather 500ml of sour cream (or creme fraiche), salt, pepper and some freshly grated parmesan cheese
Add the sour cream to a bowl and stir until it's semi-loose then add a handful of parmesan and s&p, mix well
By now the spinach should have cooled enough so remove it to a chopping board and roughly chop it
Put the chopped spinach back into your mixing bowl. Add your ricotta cheese and another handful of parmesan and mix well - use your hands!
It should look like this when you're done
By now the sauce should be done so pour it into a casserole-type dish. Add some torn basil leaves. You can now start rolling your cannelloni tubes - follow the instructions on your package for the best way to do this. Add the stuffed tubes on top of the sauce
It should look something like this when you're done. Your tubes can be larger or smaller, just make sure they more or less cover the whole dish
Pour your white sauce over the top and drizzle a little olive oil over it
Spread a mix of mozzarella and parmesan cheese over the topic and put it into your preheated oven (180c or 350f) for about 20-25 minutes
Take it out when the top is a nice golden-brown color
Serve immediately and you can garnish with some basil leaves if you wish. Bon appetite!
So there you have it. The entire process takes about an hour from start to finish and is enough to feed 4-6 people (or 2 people for 2 days!)
Here is Jamie’s ingredient list:
- 2 knobs of butter
- olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
- a large handful of fresh marjoram or oregano, roughly chopped
- ¼ of a nutmeg, grated
- • 8 large handfuls of spinach, thoroughly washed
- • a handful of fresh basil, stalks chopped, leaves ripped
- • 2 x 400g tins of good-quality plum tomatoes, chopped
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- a pinch of sugar
- 400g crumbly ricotta cheese
- 2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 16 cannelloni tubes
- 200g mozzarella, broken up
For the white sauce:
- 1 x 500ml tub of crème fraîche
- 3 anchovies, finely chopped
- 2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
I don’t use the anchovies (didn’t use them the first time and haven’t tried them since – not because I have anything against them). I also add Lebanese zataar to the spinach which I think really enhances the taste so if you can get your hands on that I highly recommend trying it. I’m a huge spice buff so I will sprinkle some chili flakes over the top of my serving at the end which makes it all the more better to me.
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