Beef Ragu with Mushroom, Shallot & Cheese Stuffed Shells

Entertain your taste buds with this fun yet sophisticated pasta dish. 

While I cannot recall what food I ate during my short time in private school, I can tell you a crap ton of stories about NYC public school lunches. If you grew up in 80s or 90s, anyone can tell you that you might find some questionable meals on your tray. For instance, beef patties were hit or miss and chicken nuggets always caught the side eye.

My best memories are associated with the infamous burger in a bag, Elios style pizza and stuffed shells. All of the legendary elementary school fist fights came to a halt on those days. Nobody wanted to be forced to eat at the teacher's lunch table and stuck with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

As an adult, I wondered how could I make those stuffed shells better. There were days that there was too much cheese or my prepubescent mind didn't know how to describe texture conflicts with my palate. If you're craving a taste of my childhood with an adult flair, test this recipe:

What You Need

Ground Beef Ragu

Recipe for 6 - 8 people (Depends on serving size)

• 1  1/2 pounds ground beef (or consider half ground beef and ground veal)
• 1 shallot, small dice
• 2 celery stalks, small dice
• 2 carrots, small dice
• ​3/4 cup of red wine (Aim for something dry)
• 3 cups beef broth or stock, preferably unsalted
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• dash or two of salt, preferably kosher or sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 12 - 16 ounces tomato sauce (or supplement with 1 cup San Marzano tomatoes)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (or 1 cup whole milk)

Mushroom, Shallot & Cheese Stuffed Shells

Recipe for 6 - 8 people​​ (Depending on serving size)

• 24 - 28 ounces of tomato sauce
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded (prefer to shred blocks of cheese over pre shredded cheese and whole milk mozzarella if you can)
• 4 cups ricotta, preferably whole milk
• 2 eggs, medium or large
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
• dash or two of salt, preferably kosher or sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• dash of nutmeg
• 12 - 16 ounces baby portabella mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 shallot, small dice or thinly sliced

The Rundown

Ground Beef Ragu

1. Brown up your ground beef in a large preheated pan- a rondeau, Dutch oven or saucepan works well- and cook on medium fire.  Break up the meat with a spoon until it's no longer pink. This process is roughly 6 or so minutes. Typically if you use beef under 85 percent, it'll render off fat. Drain off some of the excess fat.
2. Add in shallot, carrots, garlic and celery and cook for another 5 minutes max. Vegetables should soften by this point.
3. Fold in seasonings, salt, pepper, and add in red wine. Allow most of the wine to cook off for a few minutes. 
   1. Chef Tip: If your wine comes in a glass bottle, consider pouring into a cup over doing a free pour. It looks cool but accidents happen. Alcohol plus heat means accidental flambé
   2. Chef Tip: Stuck on which wine to use? Rule of thumb is to use something that you would drink but not something that you purchased at 50.00 a bottle. I'll do a blurb about this in the future. Cheap bottle of red will work here and your kids will not get drunk. We're burning off most of the alcohol. Plus, all of those sweet notes of whatever you like will probably get lost.
4. Build your flavor by adding in beef stock/broth and tomato sauce (or canned tomatoes).  Allow it to cook down for 30 - 40 minutes. 
5. Add in warm milk or cream and cook for another 20 - 30 minutes. 
6. Garnish with parsley, parmesan or parmigiano reggiano. 
7. If you don't want to make shells, fettuccine and linguine are excellent pasta pairings. Cook pasta according to package, drain, add on olive oil to prevent pasta from sticking and season with garlic powder and Italian seasoning.

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Mushroom, Shallot & Cheese Stuffed Shells

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Grab a 4 quart pot, pour in a generous amount of salt-estimate of 4 to 5 tablespoons-and cold water into a pot, crank up the fire and bring your water to rolling boil. Prepare pasta according to the manufacturer's instructions. If using fresh pasta, cooking time is drastically shorter. Drain from water but don't rinse.
   1. Chef Tip: I prefer to cook my pasta until al denté (firm to the bite) or a minute over to preserve the integrity since it's going into the oven. I practice this technique for lasagna and baked ziti.
3. Sauté mushrooms and shallots on medium fire until soften. Place into a freezer or fridge to cool down for a few minutes.
4. In an medium sized bowl, combine cheeses, eggs, dried seasonings, dried herbs, mushroom and shallot and stir together.
5. Pour half jar of tomato sauce into a 13x9 baking pan
6. Fill each shell with mushroom, shallot and cheese mixture.
   
   1. Chef Tip: If you have a pastry bag or Ziploc bag, snip the end of the bag, fill it up and pipe cheese mixture into each shell. If not, use a tablespoon. 
   2. Each shell should fill up close to the top but not overflowing
7. Top with remaining tomato sauce, dried parsley and extra parmesan cheese if desired.
8. Cover baking pan with aluminum foil and bake for 30 - 35 minutes. 
   1. Cheese may slightly bubble, will be hot and be semi firm if picked up.

Other Suggestions & Tips

1. If you have leftover cheese mixture, consider stuffing it into manicotti shells.  Top it with a dope ass cheese or tomato blush sauce. 
2. If you're not a fan of mushroom, consider swapping out mushrooms for sauteed spinach, butternut squash or kale. 
3. Leftover ragu mixture and tired of pasta? No problem. Throw it on some slider buns or if you're feeling adventurous, you could make a really great messy quesadilla or taco--use your imagination.
4. It's easy to think that bolognese and ragu are the same--it's not.  Ragu is a meat based sauce but minced items are thrown into it (i.e. chopped carrots and celery). Although my recipe is missing pancetta, which would make it a soffritto, cream or milk is thrown in and changes the color and adds on a different flavor. Bolognese dates back to the 15th century in Bologna, Italy. They are both incredible sauces but you'll see bolognese paired up with hearty, thick pastas. Ragu is usually paired with thin or flat pastas like spaghetti and linguine. Clearly I don't follow those rules.