Happy New Year and Welcome to Binging with Babish!

This week we're taking a look at Mark Corrigan's dish that begins and ends with lettuce. But before it devolves into a lettuce casserole, it starts out as a respectable homemade pasta and alfredo sauce. As is typical of Peep Show, we have to go point-of-view and try to avoid looking at the light stands, power cables, and Whole Foods bags.

To pre-grate about three ounces of parmesan cheese and bring a cup of heavy cream to a light simmer along with two tablespoons of butter. Grab a wooden spoon and stir that around until the butter is nicely melted, and gently simmer the mixture for about 15 minutes until it has reduced by a third. Before adding the entirety of your grated cheese, along with a pinch of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, adding more cheese as necessary, until the desired thickness is achieved. Bear in mind if we were doing this for real, we want to finish cooking the pasta in the sauce so we'd want a little thinner than what we'd expect to end up in our bowl.

If you want to make your pasta from scratch like Mark Corrigan does, go check out my pasta episode of Basics with Babish. But you can just use some store-bought stuff if you don't have the time or the romantic inclination. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until al dente and cover with our alfredo sauce. Maybe have a bite or two for posterity before we absolutely ruin it with some Heinz baked beans. I know Mark crushed his up a little bit but I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference culinarily, so we're just gonna dump in about half a can, mix it up a little bit before adding some lovely filling lettuce.

And it frankly wouldn't be Moroccan if we didn't crack a few eggs in there. Make a few wells into which we'll dump four whole eggs. Enjoy a slightly jarring point of view angle of our Moroccan pasta bake before placing it in a 375-degree Fahrenheit oven for about 20 minutes. But when you're baking lettuce, do time and temperature really matter? And admittedly this is not that bad, I actually had a few bites of it and didn't hate it. It is after all just alfredo pasta with tomato-y beans and eggs until I got to a piece of baked lettuce, at which point I actually had to spit-take (sorry you had to see that). But I'm sure that we can pull something edible out of this.

Let's get started on the pasta nests. Start by running a paring knife around the outside of the pasta preemptively to loosen it and then gently crack an egg into each of your premeditated wells. Return to the oven and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny. Gently invert onto a warm interim plate while we get our main presentation going. Start by spooning some of our non-feta sauce into a pool on the bottom of the plate, top with some of our sauteed spinach and into the center nestle our egg in its pasta nest.

Finish by scattering some of our crispy roasted garbanzo beans around the outside and dig in. Now I gotta say this dish tastes about as good as it looks, which is pretty darn good, but what it really needs is a cocktail. How about Mark's signature Rum, Water, Lettuce, Vinegar and Salt cocktails? I think this is gonna be at least worth trying. Oh God, no, there's no improving on that.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enMark: Beans are not pasta sauce!Jez: They're tomato-y...Mark: Ketchup is tomato-y. That's not a pasta sauce!Jez: It is when I make pasta.What the hell are you doing?Mark: I'm picking the beans out.Jez: With your disgusting human fingers?Mark: I'm just gonna mix it all together.I need to go Nigella; I'm gonna be the hairy biker!Jez: That's not Nigella. That's not even Ainsley, mate.Mark: How about some lovely filling lettuce?Jez: You know what, maybe it's fine. Is it...Moroccan?Mark: Maybe it is Moroccan!Jez: Yeah Morocco. Anything goes in Morocco.Hey guys, Happy New Year, and welcome backto Binging with Babishwhere this week we're taking a look at Mark Corrigan's dish that begins and ends with lettuce.But before it devolves into a lettuce casserole, it starts out as a respectable homemade pasta and alfredo sauce.And since this is Peep Show, we gotta go point-of-view.Try to avoid looking at the light stands, power cables, and Whole Foods bags as I pre-grate about three ouncesof parmesan cheese and bring a cup of heavy creamto a light simmeralong with two tablespoons of butter.Grab a wooden spoon and stir that around until the butter is nicely melted, and gently simmer the mixture for about 15 minutes until ithas reduced by a third, before adding the entirety of your grated cheese,along with a pinch of kosher salt and freshly ground pepperadding more cheese as necessary, until the desired thickness is achieved. Bear in mind if we were doing this for realwe want to finish cooking the pasta in the sauce so we'd want a little thinner thanwhat we'd expect to end up in our bowl. Now if you want to make your pasta from scratchlike Mark Corrigan does go check outmy pasta episode of Basics with Babish but you can just use some store-bought stuff if youdon't have the time or the romantic inclination. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until al dente and cover with our alfredo sauce.Maybe have a bite or two for posterity before we absolutely ruin it with some Heinz baked beans.Now I know Mark crushed his up a little bit but I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference culinarilyso we're just gonna dump in about half a can, mix it up a little bit before addingsome lovely filling lettuce. And it frankly wouldn't be Moroccan if we didn't crack a few eggs in there so make a fewwells into which we'll dump four whole eggs.Enjoy a slightly jarring point of view angle of our Moroccan pasta bakebefore placing it in a 375-degree Fahrenheit oven for about 20 minutes.but when you're baking lettucedo time and temperature really matter? And admittedly this is not that bad, I actually had a few bites of it anddidn't hate it. It is after all justalfredo pasta with tomato-ey beans and eggs until I got to a piece of baked lettuce, atwhich point I actually had to do aspit-take (sorry you had to see that). But I'm sure that we can pull something edible out of this monstrosity.Let's start by replacing the beans with garbanzo beans, which isn't cheating that badly since Mark made homemade hummus earlier in the episode.We're starting by rinsing and drying a whole can of garbanzo beans and tossing them witholive oil and salt before spreading evenly on a non parchment lined baking sheet androasting at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 to 30 minutes until browned and crisp. At this point, while they're still hot, you cantoss them with any spice or seasoning that you want, but in this case I'm going to toss them with alittle bit of plain sweet paprika. So that's got our beans covered, now what about our tomato sauce element?Let's make some Moroccan ragu starting by sautéeing a small diced onion, a small diced red pepper,crushing a clove of garlic in there and letting these guys sweat it out until fragrant and translucentat which point we're going to add a good pinch of cumin,a good pinch of smoked paprika, a hefty shake of cayenne and a generous jostling of turmeric.Let these flavors get to know each other just a little bit before addinga 28oz can of whole San Marzano tomatoes.Smash them up and stew them down for about 30 minutes until the harsh raw tomato flavor has abated.We're now going to thoroughlypuree our tomato sauce in a high powered blender until extremely smooth, set aside about half in a small saucepan,keep it warm, and in the remaining half we're going to add maybe a half cup of feta cheese. This is acting as both ourAlfredo stand-in, and what is eventually going to be the glue for our pasta. Process thoroughly and butter two ramekins enthusiastically.Then we're going to cook and drain about half a pound of thin spaghetti, add our feta sauce, toss to combineand twirl up some pasta nests into our buttered ramekins then, not with ourdisgusting human fingers but with our carving fork and spoon, we want to press thewell into the center of our pasta nest. This is eventually where the eggs are going to go.Now we're going to bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes during which time we'regoing to make some simple sauteed spinach with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. This is our lettuce stand-in because I'llbe damned if I'm eating hot lettuce again.Now our pasta nests have come out of the oven and they're ready to receive their eggs.First start by running a paringknife around the outside of the pasta preemptively to loosen it and then gently crack an egg into each of your premeditated wells.Return to the oven and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny.Gently invert onto a warm interim plate whilewe get our main presentation going. Start by spooning some of our non-feta sauce into a pool on the bottom of the plate,top with some of our sauteed spinach and into the center nestle our egg in its pasta nest.Finish by scattering some of our crispy roasted garbanzo beans around the outside and dig in. Now I gotta say,this dish tastes about as good as it looks, which is pretty darn good, but what it really needs is a cocktail.How about Mark's signature Rum, Water, Lettuce, Vinegar and Salt cocktails? I think this is gonna be at the very least...Oh God, no, there's no improving on that.\n"