Mint Tagliatelle with Lamb and Olives

My favorite part of winter is when you get the chance to break out those classic hearty braised dishes that fill and warm you up until the cold winter's chill is out of your bones. I let it be known to anyone who asks that overall I hate winter. I would much rather have it be summer all year round. But the trade-off is that here in New England we are blessed with having four distinct seasons, each of which brings it's own opportunity to showcase not only what is available but what is appropriate for the time that you are having it. 

These meals often involve utilizing parts of the animal that are tougher, which would require longer,slower, moist heat cooking methods. These cuts of meat are tougher because they are the most worked part of the animal, and because of that they tend to have the most flavor. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking a good quality grilled ribeye or New York strip steak, but there is not really much that needs to be done with those cuts. It's hard to screw up a fillet mignon on the grill, so long as you don't overcook it to death. But the real skill of a quality cook is when they can take some of the less desirable parts of the animal, the tougher cuts, the throwaway pieces, and make a delicious meal out of them. This is perhaps why Mario states in the cookbook that you will never see a filet mignon on the menu at Babbo. 

It's not that he has anything personal against beef tenderloin. And I'm sure that back in Italy they wouldn't have thrown that cut out either. The idea is to come up with ways to utilize the rest of the animal once those prized cuts are used up. In this way you stretch out the meals while honoring the life of the animal by utilizing everything in it. And in doing so, one will quickly realize that most of these alternative cuts taste better than some of the "prime cuts". 

This is one of the central themes that are prevalent throughout this cookbook which is why I feel that The Babbo Cookbook is an important one in any serious cook's library. This next recipe is a prime example of what I've just been talking about. 

As promised last week, this recipe is a little bit involved. We have to braise lamb shoulder and make a hearty Ragu, and also make fresh pasta. It's been cold enough lately for me to finally try this recipe out so I'll get right into it. 

It really doesn't matter if you make the pasta first or start with the Ragu. I started with the Ragu first because it takes a couple of hours to braise and become really tender, which will give me plenty of time to knock out a batch of pasta dough. 

I take out my Dutch oven and heat olive oil over high heat until it is just about smoking. I have some lamb shoulder meat that I have cut into 1 inch chunks, seasoned, and thrown into the Dutch oven to start browning. You have to be careful and avoid overcrowding the pan as it will lower the temperature and you won't get a good sear. 

Once I have browned the meat I remove it onto a plate and add carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and thyme. I sweat these vegetables until they are tender. 

Next I add red wine and canned, whole San Marzano tomatoes that I have crushed by hand. I use a wooden spoon to dislodge any of the brown bits on the bottom of the pan called fond. 

This mixture gets brought to a boil and then I return the meat to the pan and reduce it to a simmer. I let this go for about two hours until the meat is extremely tender. The wonderful smell quickly fills my kitchen. 

While that's going I start making my fresh pasta dough. I bring some water up to a boil and throw in some mint leaves to blanch them. Once they are cooled off from the water bath I squeeze them in a paper towel to dry the mint leaves out. 

The mint leaves then go into the food processor and are puréed to form a very fine paste. The eggs and olive oil are also added, and from here I just use the familiar well method and finish making the pasta dough by hand. I can see specks of the mint in my pasta dough but I don't have that pure green color that Mario shows in the picture in the book. Not really sure what happened here but I will go back at some point and mess around with it again. 

The pasta dough has to rest for a half an hour before I can roll it out and cut the tagliatelle shape. I have plenty of time as my lamb still needs to continue it's cooking. It gets cut into 1/4 inch wide strips. 

Once the lamb is tender enough I take the pan off the heat and remove the meat from the pan. It gets shredded with a fork and returned to the pan. 

I then add olives that are pitted and simmer this for an additional 30 minutes. Mario recommends using arbequina olives but I was unable to find any at Whole Foods, so I selected a very close alternative. 

At this point the mixture is a thick Ragu so it needs to be seasoned with salt and pepper and I remove the sprigs of thyme. 

I bring my pasta cooking water up to boil in season it with salt and drop in my tagliatelle. It only takes a few minutes to get to al dente at which point I combine it with the lamb Ragu. 

The pasta is plated and I shave a generous amount of Parmigiano-reggiano cheese over-the-top.  

Wow. All I can say is wow. 

This pasta tastes as good…no better than it looks in the cookbook! Because it is lamb my wife was too squeamish about even trying it. Well that was her loss, that means more for me. 

The flavor of the mint in the pasta was kind of overshadowed by the hearty Ragu. But overall it was still an extremely tasty dish and perfect for this time of year. Lamb is kind of a treat for me and I do not get to have it that often. But I had enough left over to enjoy it twice during the week. 

I have another simple antipasto dish coming up next but I'm also excited that after calling my local butcher I was able to get my hands on some pork jowls. My local butcher is a few towns over from where I live which is not that far but I don't get a chance to walk around there as often as I would like. They are starting to sell a lot more of the alternative cuts that Mario features in this book which is really cool. So as soon as I finish writing this I am going to start curing them to make the guanciale used in the cookbook. Until next time...