January 27th
2006
I'm a sucker for everything color and always have been. So when Amy over at Cooking with Amy announced the theme for this month's IMBB, I was a hundred percent positive about one thing: The pasta I'd make would have to come in a nice and bright tone.
A while back (in fact long enough to successfully have blocked those early attempts of colored pasta out of my memory) blueberry juice seemed like a wonderful idea, but the results were... hm... a bit strange - considering you also eat with your eyes.
If you have prepared blueberry muffins before and have beaten the dough too long after adding the berries, you know that the usually yellow dough develops rapidly into a rather ugly pale blue-greenish tone. And that's what happened to my last attempt of "blueberry pasta", yellow pasta dough turning into a blue/green something...Despite my predilection for colors, it was anything but appetizing. A not very encouraging, let alone satisfying experience. But that was then.
It was all about to change. We used red beet juice for a dessert sauce not too long ago and still had some at our disposal, the thought process was simple: yellow (dough) + dark pink (reduced juice) should turn into something between red and pink. And that's what we got!
And we got a lot of it! The first batch we used for tagliatelle, to be dried and to be used in the next days. I was very happy with the outcome and was looking forward to the real deal, the pink ravioli. To support to drying process of the tagliatelle, we hung the individual pasta noodles over the back of a chair, which we had seen someone do somewhere before. While it was a cool thing to do, it wasn't all that great the next morning. Quite a few had jumped, leaving the kitchen floor in a pink mess. Well, it wasn't as dramatic, but now I understand when cooks complain about the fact that home made dried pasta is much more delicate to handle.
Sweet Ravioli
Opposed to making the red beet juice ourselves and producing a big mess with a handful of fresh red beet tubers and our juicer, we took the short cut and got ours pain free at the Viktualienmarkt a week ago (for a different dish then). In case you are wondering about the taste of the pasta dough now, no worries, the typical red beet taste hasn't rubbed off at all.
Pink Pasta Dough
For the pink/red in the dough, cook the red beet juice until is gets thick and is reduced to about half of the original amount. Be careful not to let it get to thick and dark...that's what happened with our first try... Almost as bad as screwed up caramel...
Combine all other ingredients for the pasta dough with the slightly cooled down reduced juice and knead well for a few minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. I used our KitchenAid for starters, because red beet juice is well known for staining everything it comes in contact with, particularly on skin it seems to stay forever. With a safe head start, I began working the dough with my hands for a few more minutes until it was evenly colored. Wrap tightly in plastic foil and let rest for 60 minutes in the fridge. Before I chilled the dough, its consistency worried me a bit, because it felt a bit porous. But the full hour of resting magically solved the issue.
Remove dough from foil, knead a few times and either roll out thinly by hand or use your pasta machine. Our pasta machine served us well, starting with the first setting of the machine all the way up to level 7 (out of 8) - all in all about 20 runs. Turn and fold the dough a couple of times to get the best results. Don't worry if the edges aren't super even, as long as the sheets are wide enough for the ravioli shapes.
Note: Towards the end of the resting period of the dough, you may want to start with the filling. Because once the pasta sheets have been made, they should be used quickly - otherwise they get all dry and more difficult to work with. Work-around: cover pasta sheets with a damp towel until you are ready to use them.
Filling
For the ravioli filling, beat the butter and sugar together, then add the egg yolk, the lemon zest, the curd ("Topfen"), the Brioche crumbs and the Schnaps. Blend well, until it becomes a homogenous mix. Keep cool until further processing.
Finale Grande
For making ravioli, a ravioli maker can be a useful tool, but really isn't necessary. A small round cookie cutter can also be used; additionally you will need a knife to lift the filled pasta without damaging it, a brush, and a bowl with some egg white.
Instead of cooking the ravioli in water, the book suggests: Pour enough milk in a big pot, add a scraped-out vanilla bean, the vanilla seeds as well as the sugar and let simmer for a few minutes at medium heat.
Make sure you have two pasta sheets of equal size, place one of them on a slightly flour-dusted wooden board. Now either use your ravioli maker or a cookie cutter to mark where the filling needs to go. It also helps to get the most out of your sheets, avoiding waste, which you'll otherwise end up with or even worse incomplete ravioli...Using two tea spoons, place about a tablespoon of filling into each marked area. Generously brush some egg white around each filling.
As soon as you're done, take the other pasta sheet, place on top of this one and use your hands to form the ravioli and press the two layers together - gently but firm enough. Make sure no air is trapped between the two sheets of pasta. This part can be a little tricky. 'Happy with how they look? Then take your cookie cutter again and cut out the individual pieces.
Just before you cook the ravioli, prepare the sauce by adding the butter and Brioche crumbs to a small frying pan and let gently (lightly) brown.
Generally, fresh pasta cooks much much faster, so place the ravioli in the lightly simmering vanilla milk and expect them to be ready in about 3-4 minutes. They tend to float on top throughout the simmering process, just take a skimmer to turn them at least once and push them down a bit from time to time.
Arrange ravioli with the butter and breadcrumb mix on a plate, drizzle with vanilla milk (if desired) and serve while hot.
We served them with hot cinnamon cherries, which can be prepared in a heartbeat: Simply heat up cherries and cherry juice in a pan, add sugar and cinnamon to taste. Bring to a boil and add some starch/juice mix while stirring. The starch mix consists of two to three tablespoons of starch combined with a few tablespoons of juice. Add only a little at a time, as the consistency shouldn't get too dense. Done!
The only thing leaving me puzzled is the picture in the cookbook showing both the red dough (believable, since it's pretty much the same color I got) and the cooked ravioli with...still the same color! Impossible unless you either use additional artificial coloring or they weren't cooked ;) In other words it's totally normal if they loose some of the color during the cooking process. Or am I missing something???
My verdict on this recipe: sweet pink ravioli - a little time consuming but a killer recipe!
Pink Curd Ravioli in Butter Brioche Crumbs
Recipe source: Ravioli & Lasagne by Witzigmann/Teubner p.11, 112, 114, adapted mix of various recipes
Prep time: 45-60 min., chilling: 1 hour, cooking: 3-4min.
.
Ingredients for the pasta (serves 2):
250g flour
2 eggs
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1/4 tsp salt
100ml red beet juice, reduced to less than half
.
Ingredients for the filling:
50g butter
20g sugar
200g curd (Topfen)
1 egg yolk
50g Brioche crumbs
zest of 1/2 lemon
a generous dash of Marillenschnaps (or other fruit schnaps)
.
Ingredients for cooking the ravioli:
0,75l milk
1 vanilla bean, scraped out
50g sugar
.
Ingredients for the topping/sauce (amounts to taste):
butter
Brioche crumbs
.
Ingredients for the cherries (amounts to taste):
sweet cherries
sugar
cinnamon
starch
Hallo Nicky,
eine tolle Ravioli-Reportage :-) Ich habe heute ja auch welche gemacht, allerdings pikante. Aber mein Pasta-Aufsatz hat mich so sehr begeistert, da wird's wohl bald wieder Nudeln geben (auch wenn man für gefüllte Pasta jede Menge Zeit einplanen muss...) Eure Variante sieht jedenfalls ganz hinreißend aus!
Wow! Psychedelic food...must be a Euro trend...
Food Photography simply does not get any better than this. What tremendous artistry. You are an absolute inspiration.
Oh, das sieht so toll aus. Ich liebe Nudeln, und ich liebe Pink! Ich glaube die Raviolis müsste ich ewig ansehen und könnte gar nicht hineinbeißen *gg*.
Die Idee, sie mit Kirschen zu kombinieren und so die Farbe nochmal aufzugreifen finde ich klasse :).
Bravo !!!
Wow! Your pasta looks amazing. You are very inventive. I have never tried 'dessert' pasta, but this sounds delicious. Congratulations on the Blog award!
This looks beautiful. With that pink color, I think it would be perfect for Valentine day. Can I ask you what kind of flour you used? I've been working on pasta recently and the results were less than satisfying... I suspect the flour to be involved in my poor results.
Yummi lovely ! really I love it ! Splendid and it looks so good to taste but it's so beautiful....arf ... what a difficult question ! eat 'em or look at 'em ?!
The pictures are amazing. I love the color of the pasta- very vivid (if you were in the States you'd make a mint selling that for Valentine's Day!).
When I was in grad school a friend of mine lent me her pasta maker and I started off at 6pm one night with goal of creating a lovely dinner to share with her and her husband.
Like you said- killer but time-consuming. At 2am the next morning I was finished. That night I could hardly eat I was so tired and just plain sick of the stuff!
But I have to try your recipe- call me a glutton for punshment!
Oliver & Nicky,
Che piatto meraviglioso! What an incredible dish! First of all I admire your sense of adventure at trying beet juice with pasta. And it was an excellent choice. The colour of the pasta is so beautiful ... I can't imagine anything that would suit Valentine's Day more than this except maybe chocolate.
And the recipe sounds lovely. We often make pasta with toasted bread crumbs but it never occurred to me to try brioche crumbs. Excellent idea!
Bravissimi!
I love the colour! Pity it lost a little colour in cooking. Did they cook the ravioli in beet juice too to preserve the colour? I've never dared to make my own pasta, except for gnocchi, but one day I shall and I think I might start with this! Brilliant!
This is one of the most original recipes I've read in a long time, can't wait to try it this weekend. One good thing about the icy spell we're having - perfect for spending lots of time in the kitchen. Your pictures were always fabulous; these are out of this world... Thanks!
Looks absolutely lovely! :)
I have to know what kind of camera set up you have. That first photo looks like you are using a 4x5 camera. The planes of focus...amazing! Very effective. Tommorow I try the Kartoffelsuppe recipe you sent.
Keep up the fantastic work.
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Beautiful! I LOVE the idea, just very creative. Funny, I am about to post on ravioli, so I will surely mention your recipe which makes me want to try asap!
Plus beets are a theme for me too (made beet and dark chocolate brownies).
Anyway, I am totally inspired. The colour is just magnifique!
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That pasta just blew me away! WOW! What creativity...
Stunning. All I can say is stunning!
What an idea! Fabulous! I have heard of ink pasta before but not this. I like it! I shall post a peasant traditional recipe on noodles, being so inspired here.
You mentioned the photos in the cookbook had suspiciously the same pink hue in the cooked and uncooked pasta, and wondered why. It might not be the food at all... it's quite possible that the graphics editors of the book mistakenly thought the "after" photos of the cooked pasta was just a poor photo, so they punched up the color, matching it to the pre-cooked color. You could look for clues by looking at the rest of the photo (to see if other background items are too saturated with color, too), or other subtle photo doctoring (like "edges" of where the editor masked off the raviolis and increased the color on just those places).
Those pink pastas are beautiful and so artistic looking! You are really an amazing cook with great ideas...
Around Christmas time I tried making cookies from 3 different colors of dough, rolled into a spiral shaped log, and then cut into slices. The recipe called for using food coloring, but I wanted to try using beet powder, spirulina, and cocoa powder as the colorants, having used them before to color icing. Colorwise, the cookies turned out fairly well, but the cookies tasted like stale cardboard. I'll have to find a better recipe and try it again. I'm not at all convinced that the poor flavor came from the colorants I chose. Incorporating beet juice instead of the powder might be a better option, though.
I'd love to try out your pink pasta sometime. It's not only beautiful, but fun, too.
wow!!! gorgeous!!!
Cool! what a vibrant pink. You always have nice, delicious pics and ideas!
Beautiful ! Incredible, even pasta looks superb with you.
And what a brillant idea, making pink pasta... Great !
Simply stunning!
wOw! The pasta is beautiful! I love lots of color..especially things bursting with shades of pink & red. This is definitely something new & different, for me atleast. I'm sure it tasted as amazing as it looks.
Gorgeous!!
I suddenly neeeeeeeeed to buy beets and make red pasta to serve with beet greens and garlic!! (Because I love the taste of beets)
-Elizabeth
Hey das ist Klasse, meine Freundin wird sehr begeistert sein... hehehe. Super tolle Fotos.
Now this is something I haven't seen or try before. Great post. Thanks.
Lovely pictures!
Wow, perfect dish for Valentine's Day :)
Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic - the recipe AND the photos both! What a treat for the eyes... that pink colour is gorgeous!
Your Pretty in Pink Pasta gave me an idea... Valentine Pasta! Thanks for the idea! Red sauce or white? Should I go so fas as cutting vegetables into little hearts?
Petra, Kathi, super noch ein weiteres Mitglied der Familie begrüßen zu dürfen! Bei Euch liegt die Liebe zum Kulinarischen ja wirklich in der Familie. Kathi, ich hab gleich einen Abstecher zum Kochfrosch unternommen, gefällt mir super :) Die Apfelpfannkuchen wären jetzt genau nach meinem Geschmack! Auch wenn's dann eher "zum Abendessen" wäre...
Magictofu, The type of flour we used is (in Germany) referred to as E450 standard flour – I’m not sure there is a real/direct mapping of German flour types to US/UK flour sorts but by looking at the options listed here ..."cake & pastry flour (EN-US)" seems to make sense. The last time we used special Italian flour (Farina Typ 00), but to be honest, I couldn't recognize a big difference, neither in taste, nor in handling the dough...
MM, SnohWeasel, They also chose to cook them in milk, at least that's what the book claims. The colors of the cookbook pictures look totally natural. Photoshop’ed? Perhaps, but would have required lots of major post-processing work - I'd say no. If you take a look at our cooked ravioli, you can see, that the color fades to the outside - something the cookbook picture also doesn't show... They could have been cooked in beet juice, but those would have only been good for the photo shoot – taste wise I’d think that the red beet taste would then prevailed… Let's file it under unsolved mysteries ;)
Hi Hag, that photo was shot with the Nikon D70s, no flash, no extra lighting. How did the potato soup work out for you?
Tongue in Cheek Antiques, I'd go for some white sauce or - even more adventurous - how about green pesto? Cutting vegetables into little hearts? I think you are almost as "crazy" as I am... ;)
Pink Pasta - Wow! Very inspiring especially for Valentine's Day. Thanks so much for sharing and great photos too. Congratulations on the Food Blog Award too.
just dscovered your website and wow, especially what a treat to find this post!
This is definitely perfect for Valentine's Day. I hope my pasta skills get that good. It's so exciting to make your own pasta. I'm imagining pink pasta would be so much fun! Have you ever tried chocolate ravioli? I have a recipe somewhere for that. Your blog is great! Glad I came across it tonight.
Hi Nicky/Oliver,
What a wonderful idea. I haven't ever thought of a sweet pasta for dessert but this looks, and sounds, delicious. Thank you for sharing this discovery with all of us.
I echo everyone else's statements—beautiful post. You are quite the photographer. I"m glad to see folks making their own pasta dough—it's fun and relatively easy. The photos make my mouth water :)
Such beautiful pictures and such a creative recipe! I just discovered your blog. Thank you for sharing your creations. :)
hi nicky, breathtakingly beautiful! art on a plate...
Oh my Gosh! the most beautiful pasta I 've ever seen.
I had a recipe of pink financiers (using also red beet) in mind that I saw a few days ago but your pasta rock.
Nicky,
I'm so glad to have discovered your blog! Pink is my favorite color so of course I was quite drawn to this! The pictures are beautiful and it looks delicious!
So beautiful!
This may be a stupid question, but how do you find out about the upcoming IMBB? I looked on the IMBB website, and it only goes up to #17, so I was wondering...
This must be the most beautiful pasta I've ever seen - simply gorgeous! As I don't have a pasta machine, I won't even contemplate recreating the pink pasta, instead I just come back here every now and then to drool:)
Hi Mym,
There are so many new food events, it's almost impossible to keep track and stay up-to-date ;) These three different sites should give you a good starting point for upcoming dates: IMBB, Sticky Date & Food Blog S'cool
What fab looking pasta! I love red and yummy food so will definitely try my hand at this one soon. Especially as I just got a new KitchenAid for Christmas (red of course).
Wow! What a post. Incredible. We just started fooling around with some natural coloring and beet juice was one of them, comes out great, but really had to monitor how much we were using as not to impart the flavor. Also used Hibiscus powder and that proved wonderful too. The pasta is making me hungry.
Repeating some of the comments -- Beautiful! I love food with colors, too. I would immediately gravitate towards everything you've made.
Paz
Wow wonderfull, really looks delicious. It's very cool working with some new colors. Definitly works well in summer.
hermoso! simplemente hermoso y provocativo
This is amazing, it's almost too pretty to eat!
The pink pasta is pretty! I love this colour, is like the colour we get from the berries yoghurt ice-cream! :)
The pictures look fabulous, I've never seen pink pasta before. Great job! I don't have a pasta machine, but will try it nevertheless.
The pink pasta is beautiful. You all should sell it. I'd definitely buy it.
Having been attracted by the beautiful colour of the pink pasta we decided to give it a try yesterday... Although it seemed to look perfect in the beginning we also experienced phenomenon of the "fading colour" after cooking the pasta. It became rather pale and did not look half as nice as before anymore. The taste was good, though, and we used some "rucola-walnut" pesto as the topping for the pasta. Did you find out how one can actually maintain the red colour when cooking the pasta?
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Beautiful!