Jaime Oliver Pasta

I found this recipe on one of my marathon Food Network viewings. It struck me because it seemed pretty healthy and also used a ton of garlic. And I do love a garlic-y dinner. This dinner does take a while to put together but it's relatively cheap and can feed a crowd.

What you need:

Filling:
1 head broccoli
1 head cauliflower
6-12 cloves garlic
1 tsp dry chili flakes
2 tbsp concentrated chicken broth
3 dashes worchestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

The rest:
1 pkg oven-ready cannelloni
750 ml (one jug) tomato juice
1 pkg creme fraiche
1/3c. grated parmesan
salt and pepper
extra grated parmesan and mozarella

Putting it together:

The first thing to do is to cut up the broccoli and cauliflower into florets and boil them. Any stalks or leaves left in are fine. Boil them for a good 20min. They should be mushy and falling apart.


In a pan, fry up the garlic and chili flakes with a bit of salt and pepper in olive oil for about 30sec or until they're fragrent. Spoon the soft broccoli and cauliflower in with a few ladels of water, and add the chicken broth concentrate, and worchestershire. Let the mix simmer until it's a good consistency for filling. The filling can always be mashed if it's too chunky. And salt and pepper to taste. Then let the mix cool until it can be handled.

In a separate bowl, mix the creme fraiche with the parmesan and salt and pepper. If it seems too thick, add a dash of milk. It should be about the consistency of...melted ice cream? lava? Something liquidy enough to be poured but still with some thickness...you get the idea.

Now for assembly time! pour a bit of tomato juice into the bottom of the casserole dish you use. Stuff the cannelloni with the cooled stuffing. Then top off the casserole dish with the rest of the tomato juice. The cannelloni should be covered. Then pour the creme fraiche on top and top it all with the grated cheese.

Cook the casserole at 350F for 30-45min or until the cheese is slightly browned on top.


Additional Notes:

Really not too much to add to this one. If you like spicy food you can always add more chili flakes to the filling. It's just really tasty. The cream mixes down into the tomato juice so you get these tasty layers of just juice, then a mix, then the cream...and with the spicy veggie filling it cuts the richness of the cream.

Oh and in the original recipe, it calls for 2 anchovies to be added when you fry up the garlic and chili flakes. Apparently you don't even taste anything fishy, it just adds some salty-ness... I just wasn't sold on fish in my dish so it got left out.