Email to Cat      

Spinach Manicotta

Source of Recipe

From "Cook With Me" by Alex Guarnaschelli


Recipe Introduction

"Why did manicotti go out of style? It seems so old-fashioned now, and yet I love the baked pasta tubes. Manicotti are akin to cannelloni. They are both stuffed pastas, often filled with cheese, spinach, and/or tomatoes. You can make them out of flat lasagna sheets, rolled up and baked. For this recipe, I buy manicotti (tube-like) pasta shells, parcook them, and then fill them with fresh spinach, ricotta, and lots of lemon zest. I used to be obsessed with grating only the outer layer of lemon zest to get the floral notes and oils, leaving the bitter white pith behind. Now I love the pith—it adds a pleasantly bitter note that tamps down the natural sweetness of the ricotta. It also heightens the delicate flavor of the spinach, so I encourage you to grate the zest, and then grate the zest, and then grate even deeper. One large lemon could yield 3 to 4 tablespoons of zest and pith—and trust me, we want all of those flavors in here."

List of Ingredients

â—¦ 1 ½ cups ricotta cheese
â—¦ Kosher salt
â—¦ 14 to 16 manicotta pasta shells
â—¦ 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
â—¦ 2 cups heavy cream
â—¦ 2 large cloves garlic, minced
â—¦ Freshly ground black pepper
â—¦ 3 cups finely grated pecorino cheese
â—¦ 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
â—¦ 1 teaspoon Tabasco
â—¦ ½ teaspoon ground allspice
â—¦ 1 large egg, lightly beaten
â—¦ Grated zest (with some pith) and juice of 1 large lemon
â—¦ Leaves from 6 sprigs fresh tarragon, coarsely chopped
â—¦ 4 cups fresh baby spinach


Recipe

Remove the ricotta from its container and place it in a colander set on a plate. Refrigerate the ricotta for at least 30 minutes or up to 4 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.

Fill a medium pot with about 4 quarts of water and bring it to a rolling boil. Add ¼ cup of salt and bring the water back to a boil. Taste the water. It should be salty like seawater. Add the manicotti and cook, stirring them gently with a large slotted spoon to ensure that they do not stick or clump, until they are still quite firm, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain the pasta and transfer it to a kitchen towel to drain and cool.

Set the pot you used to cook the pasta over medium heat, add the cream and garlic, and bring to a gentle simmer. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in 2 cups of the pecorino, the Worcestershire, and the Tabasco. Taste for seasoning and set aside.

In a large bowl, spread the ricotta out across the bottom and up the sides of the bowl (so the seasoning will coat most of the cheese.) Season it with salt and evenly spread ½ cup of the pecorino over the ricotta. Use a small strainer to sift the allspice evenly over the cheese. Mix to blend, adding the egg, lemon zest and pith, and tarragon to the mixture. Coarsely chop about three-fourths of the spinach and stir that into the mix as well.

Put the filling in a sealed plastic bag and cut off the tip of one corner with a pair of scissors. Place the hole in the bag at one end of each manicotti and squeeze so the filling goes into the pasta tube. Spoon some of the sauce over the bottom of a 13-by-9-inch baking dish so the pasta won't stick as it bakes. Arrange the filled pasta in tight rows in the baking dish, taking care that the manicotti are snug in the dish. They can even pile up or overlap.

Cover the manicotti with about half of the sauce. Place the baking dish on the center rack and bake until the filling is hot in the center when pierced with the tip of a knife, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the baking dish from the oven. Warm any remaining sauce and spoon it over the manicotti. Sprinkle with the remaining ½ cup pecorino and the remaining spinach. Drizzle with the lemon juice and serve.

Serves 6 to 8