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Keep coming up with new pasta dishes for the whole family (preferably a meat-free one) is challenging. I was looking for something new to try when I came across this recipe on BBC Good Food I liked the idea of spinach and ricotta combination filled pasta tubes. Rotolo (Italian for roll) can be made from fresh lasagne pasta. But I didn’t want to bother making the dough or cutting fresh pasta into small pieces so I used lasagne verdi sheets instead. It makes the whole process a lot faster and easier – and for a busy mum that’s a great bonus. You can use fresh pasta lasagne verdi sheets, that’s even faster. I only had dry ones at home so I just softened them by placing them into boiling water for 10 minutes. I also prefer lasagne verdi instead of plain lasagne sheets as I love the colour combination. The recipe will serve 4 adults and it takes about 1 hour and a bit to prepare it. Bobcat loved it, in spite of the spinach. (Well done, mummy.)
Ingredients:
10 sheets of fresh or dry lasagne verdi sheets
250g mozzarella, grated
For the filling:
500g ricotta cheese
200g fresh baby or young spinach, washed
2 garlic cloves, minced
50g Parmesan, grated
1 egg
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
For the tomato sauce:
1 medium brown onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
500g tomato passata
Handful of fresh basil
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- First, prepare the tomato sauce. In a pan heat the olive oil, add the onion and garlic then saute them for 5-7 minutes.
- Then add the passata, the basil and some pepper and salt.
- Cook it for a further 5-6 minutes.
- Set it aside.
- Bring water to boil in a pan and steam the washed spinach leaves for 6-7 minutes. No more than that, they will cook further in the oven.
- Grab a mixing bowl and put all the ingredients of the filling into it and combine them.
- Lay out the lasagne sheets and with a tablespoon scoop a heaped spoonful of filling onto each sheet and spread it all over.
- Then roll it up and cut it into half. Voila, your rotolos.
- Pour half of your tomato sauce into a baking dish and even the sauce over the whole surface of the dish.
- Place each of your rotolos nice and neatly – but don’t squeeze them – into the dish.
- Finally, scatter all the 250g grated mozzarella cheese on the top of it.
- In a pre-heated oven bake it for 25-30 minutes depending on how crunchy and brown you like your cheese and pasta. (I like it crunchy ?)
No need to cover it. Serve it immediately.
