BAKED PASTA SHELLS STUFFED WITH SPINACH AND RICOTTA

I admit that stuffed pasta, swathed in tomato sauce and baked in the oven doesn’t look summery, but the point is this: the tomato sauce that dresses the pasta is light and fresh; the ricotta and spinach within it are lighter and fresher still. It’s fiddly to make, I’ll grant you, but there is a calming, ritualistic aspect to it that makes it strangely unflustering to put together in anything but the most scorching summer heat. Besides, I like this best left to sit for a while once it’s done its time in the oven, so that you eat it warm rather than hot; strangely enough – given the amount of green stuff in it – so do my children.

You can make this in advance – that’s to say, cook and stuff the pasta and sit it in its sauce and leave it, covered in the fridge for a few hours, before adding the final bit of parmesan and baking it in the oven – which can make life easier if you’ve got a huge tableful of people coming over later. To be honest, this is the sort of pasta you give people as a main course, with nothing but an astringently dressed crisp green salad.

1 clove garlic, minced

1 onion, finely chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 x 700g bottles tomato passata

700g fresh spinach (or 1kg frozen chopped spinach, thawed and thoroughly drained)

500g ricotta

2 eggs, beaten

1 x 100g piece parmesan

freshly grated nutmeg

salt and pepper

500g large pasta shells

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6.

In a very large saucepan, gently fry the garlic and onion in the oil for about 5–10 minutes until translucent. Add the passata and refill both bottles with water about three-quarters full, giving them a good shake to mop up any tomato. This will give you about 1.2 litres water. Add it to the pan. Bring the sauce to the boil and then partially cover and simmer for about 25 minutes.

Soak the fresh spinach in some cold water in the sink to get rid of any mud, drain and then cook in just the water that’s still clinging to the leaves until it has wilted down and cooked through, then drain well and chop roughly (you can just go at it with scissors while it’s sitting in the colander). If you’re using frozen chopped spinach, make sure – once it’s thawed – that you’ve pressed out every last bit of water; you can also use frozen leaf spinach, and chop it yourself once it’s thawed and drained.

Empty the ricotta into a bowl, add the eggs and then grate in about 75g of the parmesan. Add the spinach when it is cool, squeezing out (again) any excess water with your hands, then stir everything together and season it well with the nutmeg and salt and pepper.

Cook the pasta shells in a large pan of water, for about 5 minutes once they have come back to the boil, then drain and leave them to get cool enough for you to stuff them without burning your fingers. Tip the shells into a dish, of approximately 38 x 32cm, so that they lie in a single layer, then fill each shell with a heaped teaspoon of the spinach and ricotta filling. Ladle the tomato sauce over the pasta, and grate over the remaining parmesan.

Bake for about 20–30 minutes by which time the pasta will be tender and the light tomato sauce hot and bubbling. Remove from the oven and let stand for a while to cool down slightly before serving.

Serves 8–10.