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8 hours ago
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Today’s pasta rolls are a fun and easy twist on lasagne or cannelloni. Instead of the traditional white sauce, each pasta tube is filled with cream cheese, mozzarella and a savoury mixture made with mushrooms and shredded leftover ham, either off a whole boiled ham or ready-sliced.
Ham lasagne rolls
This recipe is an easy win and great fun to make. Kids love it, too, and it can easily be made vegetarian by replacing the meat with wilted greens such as spinach, kale or/and beetroot leaves.
Even a small amount of ham will add flavour and nutrition to this dish. I rarely buy sliced ham, because it’s so hard to find any made with free-range pork. Occasionally, however, I’ll boil a gammon and slice it into ham. Meat is always best cooked on the bone, but that can be hard to cut around, and it’s those scraps that can be cut off and shredded into this dish (sliced works just as well, too, of course).
You can use fresh lasagne sheets for this, but they can be expensive, so I used dried ones that I blanched in plenty of salted boiling water. To avoid them sticking together, drop in each sheet separately and wait 10 seconds before putting in the next one, then stir every now and then for about five minutes, until the sheets are malleable but still undercooked. This will help keep a bit of bite and chew in the rolls.
This recipe is inspired by New Zealand’s national treasure, Jo Seagar, who has had a prolific career on TV and as a food writer. You can find many of her recipes on Love Food Hate Waste, an international campaign for climate action that provides knowledge and expertise to help people save food from the bin, and which I highly recommend for all sorts of waste-saving recipes, tips and facts.
Serves 4
Olive oil
200g mushrooms, sliced – the variety is up to you, though a good mixture is always welcome
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
150-200g leftover ham, shredded
Salt and black pepper
1 tsp chilli flakes, or to taste (optional)
1 tbsp vinegar – cider, wine or balsamic
400g tinned chopped tomatoes
1 pinch finely grated lemon zest, to taste (optional)
12 lasagne sheets, fresh or dried and blanched (see recipe introduction)
200g cream cheese
150g mozzarella
60g parmesan
12 black olives, pitted (optional)
Put a glug of olive oil in a saucepan over a medium-high heat, add the sliced mushrooms and fry, stirring, for about seven minutes, until they brown. Add two of the chopped garlic cloves and the shredded ham, stir for a minute, then season to taste and transfer to a bowl to cool.
To make the tomato sauce, put the same pan back on a medium heat, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, the last chopped clove of garlic and an optional teaspoon of chilli flakes. Before the garlic browns, add the vinegar and chopped tomatoes, and bring to a simmer to thicken. Season to taste and add an optional grating of lemon zest.
Lay out all the lasagne sheets on a work surface, then spread the cream cheese all along the length of each sheet. Evenly scatter over the grated mozzarella, then spoon the ham mixture on top. Roll each sheet into a cigar and arrange side by side in an enamel baking dish. Pour the tomato sauce over the top, scatter over the grated parmesan and dot the pitted olives around and about. Bake in a 240C (220C fan)/gas 9 oven for 20 minutes, until browned and bubbling, then remove and leave to rest for 10 minutes before serving.
