Cooking Shells For Italian Stuffed Shells

Video Transcript

"MATT SENATORE: Hi. This is Matt Senatore on behalf of Expert Village, and today we're going to learn how to make my Italian stuffed shell appetizer. Now let's make our pasta. Okay. We're going to turn our stove on high and we're going to bring our water to a boil. So now that it's boiling, we're going to put a little bit of oil just so the pasta doesn't stick together. We'll put some salt. So now we're going to take each shell and gently put them in the water. Now, obviously, the water is boiling and you don't want to burn your hands, but just drop it in just like that, kinda away from each other. You--like I said 'cause you don't want to to put them in and you don't want them to break. So you're just going to drop them in there. Try to drop them away from the others if you can. Remember, this is all about presentation that's why we're doing this. I know it seems a little obsessive, but you want this to look good. You don't want broken shells, so. And you know, you may have to go through two or three boxes of shells to get you know, an equivalent of one box of good shells, but you know that's the price you pay to make your food look good. Make sure you periodically test the shells gently. Make sure you do it gently 'cause you don't want to break shells. And just test them to see how they're cooking. You want them firm, you don't want them too soft, and obviously you don't want them rock hard. You kinda want them firm and kind of rubbery, and that means they're perfectly done. Right now, these are pretty hard, so they got a while to cook. We're going to cook them roughly 10 minutes, in 10 to 12 minutes, and that will probably be perfect. So I think that the pasta is about done. We're going to go in here and lift one out gently if we can because we don't want it to tear. And you see it's soft but still a little firm. That's perfect 'cause in the end we're going to bake it when it's all done anyway, so I think we're about done here. So let's turn our stove off and we're going to strain. Shake that a bit. Okay. That's great. Okay. Now I'm going to show you an easy way to dice some onions."