A perfect recipe during Lent!
Marrows filled with ricotta and baked in the oven (qarabaghli mimli bl-irkotta)
Cook time
Total time
A great recipe during Lent or when you don't feel like meat
Author: www.amaltesemouthful.com (Marlene Zammit)
Cuisine: Maltese
Ingredients
- 4 - 5 onions sliced
- 6 - 7 medium sized potatoes sliced
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 tablespoon dried or fresh thyme
- 5 medium oblong marrows (light green courgette or zucchini) cut length ways in halve with the middle flesh removed (don't throw out the flesh)
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley (plus some more to garnish)
- 3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese (or any similar hard cheese)
- 300 grams ricotta cheese
- 1 egg
- Nutmeg
- 600ml vegetable or chicken stock (if not fasting)
- 4 large tablespoons kunserva (tomato puree)
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- Foil
- Large casserole dish
Instructions
- Heat oven to 180oC.
- In a large casserole dish place the sliced onions at the bottom.
- On top of the onions place the sliced potatoes and crushed garlic.
- Mix 300 ml of your stock and 2 tablespoons kunserva. Place all over the potatoes.
- Sprinkle with your thyme, seasoning and a few tablespoons olive oil.
- In a bowl mix the ricotta, hard cheese, parsley, egg, some seasoning and 2 pinches of nutmeg.
- Dice the flesh of 2 of the marrows which you left aside. Add this to the ricotta mixture.
- With your ricotta mixture fill your marrows (you should have 10 halved marrows to fill).
- Place the marrows on top of the potatoes and sprinkle some more olive oil over your marrows.
- Season again.
- Cover with foil.
- Leave in the oven for 1 hour.
- Mix the remaining stock (300ml) plus the remaining kunserva (2 tablespoons) together.
- Remove the dish from the oven and remove the foil (save this).
- Gently pour over the stock mixture on to your marrows and potatoes (do this gently so as not to disturb your ricotta mixture in your marrows).
- Cover with the foil again and place in the oven for a further 50 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and remove the foil.
- Check that the marrows and potatoes are cooked by pricking with a fork.
- Place back in the oven without the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
- Garnish with some more parsley and serve.
- The remaining flesh of the marrows can be used to make a tomato piquant sauce which can be served with the marrows or with pasta.