tagliatelle al caffé con ragù bianco
fresh coffee tagliatelle with white ragù
This recipe falls into the slightly gimmicky bracket, but, surprisingly enough, coffee flavoured pasta is reasonably well known in Italy. The coffee simply adds a little bitter bite to the taste, almost like a very strong wholemeal flour might. Of course, it's practically impossible to find coffee flavoured pasta in the shops, so you'll need to make your own. While tagliatelle can of course be made without a pasta machine, the technique below assumes you have access to at least a manual pasta machine.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)
make the fresh egg pasta
rest the dough
make the tagliatelle
prepare the ragù ingredients
cook the soffritto
add the meat, cook in wine
cook the ragù
boil the pasta
combine pasta and sauce
fresh coffee tagliatelle with white ragù
INGREDIENTS
FOR FOUR PEOPLE
500g pork mince
2 celery sticks
4 small carrots
5 small onions
1 chicken stock cube
1 large garlic clove
white wine to taste
2 tblspns butter
a handful of basil leaves
bay leaves
freshly grated nutmeg to taste
10-20g ground coffee
PASTA
fresh homemade coffee tagliatelle:
400g 00 flour
40ml espresso coffee
2 eggs
35ml water
MANTECATURA (?)
minimal
METHOD
If it's your first time making fresh pasta, please don't try this for friends or a dinner party; you need to allow yourself plenty of time to get used to working with dough and the pasta machine. Begin by making the pasta. Make some espresso coffee in a Moka type machine and allow it to cool completely. On a work surface, mix 10g of the ground coffee with the flour.
Pile the coffee and flour mixture up into a little mountain and then with a couple of fingers make a little well in the centre of the flour mountain. Add the broken eggs to the well and using a table fork, slowly begin to mix the egg and small amounts of flour from the centre of the well. Gradually add the espresso and also the water as you mix. Begin to work the dough with you hands and if need be add tiny dribbles of water. Keep working the dough until it's beautifully smooth to manipulate, then wrap it in cling film and let it rest in a fridge for about 30 minutes.
Once the pasta's rested, you can begin to roll it out. This is where you'll need a pasta machine. Follow the instructions for your pasta machine - you need to arrive at long thin sheets of no more than 3mm. On Imperia type pasta machines, this is roughly on the 6th click setting for thickness - but check your own machine. The long, wide sheets of pasta then need to be fed through the pasta machine's tagliatelle attachment, and the pasta needs to hang out to dry.
Any pasta stand you might have bought will inevitably be too small, and you'll find yourself using coat hangers, oven handles and so on to hang your fresh pasta off - that's the reason tagliatelle tend to be allowed to dry in small clumps on a well-floured surface. Let the pasta dry for between 45-90mins and then it's ready to cook.
The white ragù for this recipe is almost identical to the other white ragù recipe you'll find in this book. Start with a finely chopped soffritto of onion, carrots, celery in EVO; after a minute or so add garlic and sweat with a little water until the onions are translucent and the carrots have almost lost their crunch. In a separate pan, fry the minced meat until it’s cooked through with some EVO and a few bay leaves (I much prefer 5% fat pork to beef mince, but minced lamb, veal, or sausage meat can all work too).
Add a splash of white wine and cook off the alcohol and most of the moisture, then add the pork to the soffritto. Add more wine, a glass or two of water and a chicken stock cube (or two, to taste). Simmer on a low heat, stirring frequently, for 90 - 120 minutes. You’ll need to make sure it doesn’t dry out, and add a little water and wine every so often. You want to aim for a sharpish wine taste but then start adding little knobs of butter until you get a nice sharp-creamy contrast.
During this time also grate a whole nutmeg into the mix, add a big handful of basil leaves, and plenty of salt and black pepper to taste. When you’re approaching a taste for the sauce that you’re happy with, boil fresh egg pasta (a lighter, fresh pasta works best with this sauce than a dry pasta) in a separate saucepan. Most of the supermarket fresh pastas like this cook in about 4 mins so after a minute or two drain the pasta and transfer to the pan with the ragù, add a small amount of cooking water and mix/toss everything together as the pasta finishes cooking and combines with the meat and sauce juices.
Keep checking and tasting and DON’T overcook the pasta! Serve immediately and quickly with more black pepper and pecorino / parmesan, and a small sprinkling of ground coffee on top of each portion.
NUTRITION per serving
KCAL: we're working on it!
Fat (g): TBC
Sat Fat (g): TBC
Carb (g): TBC
Sug (g): TBC
Fibre(g): TBC
Prot (g): TBC
Salt (g): TBC
Nutritional information is provided as an indication only of approximate values for the recipe on this page. You should make your own calculations if you have specific dietry requirements or are required to follow a strict calorie-controlled diet.
