Hot Ricotta Dip with Thyme, Chilli and Garlic

The word 'dip' implies a cold mixture, but why shouldn't it be piping hot, molten and herby? Because winter's coming roaring towards us in the Cape, my thoughts have turned to comforting food, so here's my first cold-weather recipe of the season.

I'm such a fan of good ricotta cheese. I admit that it doesn't have the sexy, fatty, stringiness of melted hard cheeses, or the creamy crumbliness of a good feta or similar white cheese. But I love the plainness and cleanness of the taste of ricotta, and its wonderful grainy texture.

Here's a basic recipe for a hot ricotta dip that you can gussy up with all sort of interesting ingredients. Here, I've used chopped artichoke hearts, lemon juice, garlic, herbs and dried chilli flakes, but you can really add anything you please, provided that it's an ingredient that tastes good hot. Avocado, for example, is out, and I'd avoid anything with a vaguely bitter taste, such as olives.

Make sure you serve this piping hot, and straight away. The leftovers are lovely on hot toast, for breakfast. This makes quite a large quantity, but the recipe is easily halved.

Hot Ricotta Dip with Herbs, Chilli and Garlic
350 g fresh ricotta cheese
100 g finely grated Pecorino or Parmesan
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) dried red chilli flakes
the juice of half a lemon
a clove of garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
2 tsp (10 ml) fresh thyme leaves
2 tsp (10 ml) finely snipped chives
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
a tin of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
salt and milled black pepper, to taste

Heat the oven to 180ºC. Set aside a quarter of the grated Pecorino. Put all the remaining ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir very well to combine. The mixture should form a slightly firm paste. If it looks too dry, add a little milk. Pack the mixture into bowls and top with the remaining grated Pecorino. Bake at 180º C for ten minutes, or until the mixture is bubbling and heated right through. Now turn on the oven grill and grill for a few minutes, or until the topping is golden. Serve very hot, with nachos or crackers.

Serves 6 to 8 as a starter

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Ricotta-and-Parsley-Filled Paccheri Baked with a Tomato, Butter and Sage Sauce

The defining deliciousness of this sunny baked pasta dish comes from a sauce made from just a few ingredients: burstingly ripe cherry tomatoes cooked to a stickiness in hot butter, then lightly mashed with a whisper of garlic, a few shredded fresh sage leaves and a splash of cream.

Ricotta-and-Parsley-Filled Paccheri Baked with a Tomato, Butter and Sage Sauce

The sauce is simplicity itself, but the pasta part of this dish - big tubes stuffed with a mixture of ricotta, parsley, egg and nutmeg - is a bit fiddly to make, and will take you a good half-hour to prepare.

If you're up to spending that much time stuffing a pasta tube, and you think life is long enough to do so, put on some good music and pour yourself a glass of wine.

If you don't have the time to spare, make the sauce - in double the quantity - tip it over a bowl of freshly cooked fettuccine, and top with fresh rocket and grated Parmesan.

I devised this dish because my family are getting a bit sick of the old pasta standbyes, namely spag bol, pasta-and-pesto and fettuccine Alfredo.

It's very similar to that classic Italian dish of cannelloni filled with ricotta and spinach, except that I used paccheri - large, hollow pasta tubes - instead of cannelloni, and parsley instead of spinach.

I am a great fan of flat-leaf parsley, and think it deserves to be treated as an actual vegetable, rather than a last-minute garnishing flourish, or as a humdrum stock ingredient.

You might think it odd that the uncooked pasta tubes are placed upright in the dish before they're baked, but I've done so to prevent the filling from squidging out while the dish sits, soaking in a cup of water, for an hour before baking.

If you can't find big pasta tubes, use cannelloni instead. And, as always, please use the best ingredients: really ripe, sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh garlic, crisp parsley and good butter.

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Ricotta & Parsley Filled Paccheri with a Tomato Butter Sauce

1 bag (500 g) paccheri, or giant pasta tubes

For the stuffing:
2 Tbsp (30 ml) oil
1 Tbsp (15 ml) butter
1 medium onion, peeled and very finely chopped
1 cup (250 ml) finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (about 70 g)
1 Tbsp (15 ml) fresh lemon juice
400 g ricotta cheese, crumbled
2 medium eggs
quarter of a whole nutmeg, finely grated
flaky sea salt
milled black pepper
about 4 Tbsp (60 ml) pouring cream
1½ cups (375 ml) hot water

For the sauce:
800 g ripe cherry tomatoes
80 g butter
1 Tbsp (15 ml) olive oil
2 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and finely chopped
6 sage leaves, finely shredded
4 Tbsp (60 ml) pouring cream
flaky sea salt
milled black pepper

To top:
½ cup (125 ml) grated Parmesan

First make the stuffing. Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan, and add the finely chopped onion. Fry, over a medium heat, for three minutes or so, or until the onion has softened, and is beginning to turn golden. Do not allow to brown. Turn down the heat, add the chopped parsley, stir well so that it is coated, and cook very gently for another minute. Remove from the heat and tip the mixture into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, ricotta, eggs and nutmeg, and stir well to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Now add just enough cream to turn the mixture into a slack paste that can be easily squeezed through a piping bag.

Generously butter a deep ceramic or glass baking dish big enough to hold all the pasta tubes upright (note: the pictures in this blog were made with a half-quantity of this recipe, so you'll need a dish double the size). Put the filling into a piping bag fitted with a medium nozzle, and squeeze a little filling into each pasta tube.

The best way to do this is to place each tube upright on a chopping board, and to fill it from the top (no need to fill each tube to the brim: three-quarters full is fine). Place the filled tubes upright in the dish, leaning them against each other until the dish is full. If you run out of stuffing before the dish is full, put a few empty pasta tubes between the full ones so that the dish is fairly tightly packed. Pour a cup of hot water into a jug with a pouring nozzle, and trickle the water down the side of the ceramic dish, so that the bottoms of the tubes are standing in water. Set to one side while you make the sauce.

To make the sauce, cut a small slash in each cherry tomato. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large, flat pan. When the butter stops foaming, add the tomatoes and cook, over a brisk heat, tossing often, for 7 to 10 minutes, or until the tomatoes begin to brown and a sticky golden residue forms on the bottom of the pan.

Add the garlic and shredded sage, and use a potato masher to lightly crush the tomatoes and release the juices. Turn down the heat and simmer very gently for another 10 minutes, crushing down on the tomatoes now and again, until you have a thick, chunky sauce. Stir in the cream and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Remove the sauce from the heat and pour it evenly over the top of the pasta tubes, without stirring. Give the dish a gentle shake, cover with clingfilm [saran wrap] and allow to stand for an hour.

In the meantime, heat the oven to 170 ºC. Remove the clingfilm from the dish and sprinkle the grated Parmesan evenly over the top. Place in the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked through, and the sauce is bubbling vigorously.

Serve with fresh rocket or mixed greens.

Serves 8. Print Friendly

Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi with a Fresh Tomato and Cream Sauce

This summery Italian dish requires a bit of time, and some attention to detail, but I can promise that you will not regret the effort you have made: it is, to my mind, an almost-perfect recipe: simple, fresh-tasting, refined and - let me not forget - utterly delicious.

Gnocchi verdi con sugo di pomodoro e panna was the first recipe I made, the year I was married, from Italian food guru Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookbook (MacMillan, 1988). This is still among my favourite cookbooks, and I have used it over and over again. What is very special about Marcella Hazan is her skill as a recipe writer: her instructions are both detailed and exact: comprehensive on one hand, yet on the other pleasingly concise. (Note to self: must try hard to write short recipes.)

I have adapted this recipe to cater for hurried family eating: my gnocchi balls are bigger than the 12-18 mm Hazan advises; I don't add any mortadella, green bacon or pancetta, and I don't always bother to peel the tomatoes for the sauce. When I can't find fresh spinach leaves, I use Swiss chard. Also, as real Parmesan cheese is shockingly expensive in South Africa, I use a local parmesan-like cheese or a good Pecorino.

I have tried this buttery tomato sauce with both good Italian tinned tomatoes and very deep-red, fresh tomatoes, and the fresh tomato version comes out tops every time. This sauce contains a lot of butter, which you can cut back on if you like, but the sauce just won't taste as good.

Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi with a Fresh Tomato and Cream Sauce

For the tomato sauce:
1 small onion, peeled and very finely chopped
a stick of young celery, finely chopped
2 small carrots, finely chopped
1 clove fresh garlic, peeled and chopped
900 g fresh, ripe, deep-red tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped, or the equivalent weight of tinned Italian tomatoes
1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) white sugar
160 g salted butter
salt and freshly milled black pepper
150 ml single cream

For the gnocchi:
700 g fresh spinach leaves or Swiss chard leaves, stripped from their stems
1 T (15 ml) olive oil and a knob of butter
1 small onion or shallot, peeled and very finely chopped
salt
250 g fresh ricotta cheese
140 g white flour
3 egg yolks
150 g freshly grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese
1/2 t (2.5 ml) freshly grated nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper

First make the sauce. Put all the ingredients, except the cream, into a saucepan. Bring slowly to the boil, and then reduce the heat. Allow to bubble gently, uncovered, for an hour, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. If the mixture seems too thick, add a little water. Now blend the mixture to a fine puree using a stick blender, or a liquidizer. At this point, if you haven't peeled your tomatoes, you can strain the mixture through a sieve into a clean bowl. Tip into a bowl, stir in the cream and keep warm.

While the tomatoes are cooking, start making the gnocchi. Rinse the spinach or chard leaves, shake off the excess moisture, and place them in a big saucepan over a medium-to-high heat. Toss the leaves over the heat, stirring constantly, until they are wilted and reduced by about three-quarters in volume. (You can also do this in a microwave oven.) This should take about 5 minutes. Tip the spinach into a colander set over the sink, and set aside to drain, pressing down hard now and then with the back of a soup ladle to squeeze out any excess moisture. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then place on a board and chop finely.

Heat a little olive oil and the knob of butter in a frying pan and add the chopped onion and a pinch of salt. Fry the onion gently for a few minutes, or until just tender and beginning to turn golden. Allow to cool for five minutes and tip into a large mixing bowl. Add the chopped, cooked spinach, the ricotta cheese, the flour and the egg yolks. Mix together (add a little water if the mixture seems too dry), then stir in the grated Parmesan, nutmeg and pepper. Roll the mixture into small balls, wetting your hands if it sticks. Place in the fridge for 20 minutes to firm up. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Drop the balls, four or five at a time, into the boiling water. Wait two to three minutes after the water has come back to the boil (the balls will begin to float), remove with slotted spoon and place in a warmed dish. Repeat until all the gnocchi is cooked. Reheat the sauce and pour it over the gnocchi, shaking gently so that each ball is coated. Serve with more grated Parmesan.

Serves 6. Print Friendly