Recipe Re-Creations, Pasta a la Sonoma

A long, long time ago, in a place far, far away, a woman tasted the most wonderful, simple pasta dish she had ever tasted. For the first time in her life she said, "I must try to make this myself." She did, and all was right with the world.

Ok, so a long long time ago was 10 days, and a place far, far away was oh roughly 15 blocks from my house (which we drove). But that pasta was so good I have spent the last 10 days plotting it's return to tantalize my taste buds. Rob is out at a meeting this evening, so I gathered my ingredients, and set about the recipe's re-creation.

First, I am going to tell you what information I was able to discern from eating the original dish, and then I will give you the exact recipe I came up with. A note when trying to make something for the first time: I measured, almost double of what I thought I would need out and then added a little at a time, keeping track of how much I used as I went along so as to figure out how much I used. For example, I ended up using 1/4 cup creme fraiche, in reality I measured out 1/2 a cup and added it 1 TBSP at a time until the sauce looked right (I picked TBSP b/c there are 8 TBSP in 1/2 a cup, I just happen to know that so TBSP was an easy way for me to count what I used).

Ok, on to the fun. What did I know about this dish before I began? Well, it was yummy. It used fresh Paccheri (wide tube pasta) noodles, it had Creme Fraiche, Black Pepper, Chives, Red Chilis, and Ricotta Salata in it. I also was smart enough to think to ask the waitress about the base and she said it was a combination of chicken broth and butter. That is what I had to go on.

Onto gathering my ingredients. First, I didn't use fresh pasta, I couldn't find paccheri, and actually only saw ravoli and other filled pastas at the market. So instead I bought a 1/5 inch long "ribbon" pasta, it looks like it was cut off the end of a ribbon after you use it to tie a bow on a present. This pasta worked out just fine, I would like to use fresh next time, but that will depend upon availability. I used probably 3/4 lb of pasta, and I have quite a bit of leftovers. You will also need, 1 shallot, 1 garlic clove, 1 cup chicken stock, 1 cup white wine, 1/4 butter, 1/4 cup creme fraiche, 1 dried red chili crumbled, 2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped, 1 big handful finely (as fine as possible) grated ricotta salata, olive oil, and freshly ground pepper.

First start by bringing a medium pot of water to a boil and putting in the pasta, cook until just a bit softer than al dente, just a bit. Drain.

While the water is coming to a boil and the pasta is cooking, mince both the shallot and garlic clove, Put a small glug of olive oil into a saucepan, and gently cook the shallot and garlic over medium heat for a few minutes. You do not want the shallot or garlic to burn at all so keep stirring and really just a few minutes are needed. Add in the chicken broth and the white wine and bring to a boil, then simmer until the wine/broth mix reduces to about 1 cup of liquid. (Err on the side of caution here and reduce more than you think if necessary. You can always add a little more chicken broth to a too thick sauce, but after you move onto the next step of adding butter and creme fraiche you won't want to need to simmer and reduce more, because the dairy will burn too easily.) Once the wine/broth has reduced to where you are happy, add in the butter and the creme fraiche, stir constantly to mix everything into a nice smooth texture. Add the chives and the crumbled dried red chili.

Stir everything together and add the pasta and the finely grated ricotta salata, grind fresh pepper atop and toss. Serve in a bowl.

My version of this dish, tasted quite nice, it wasn't as thick as I would have liked, and it wasn't as good as a restaurant, but I will definitely make this again.

Things I will change: I will reduce my broth/wine mixture more, I may just use chicken broth I don't think Sonoma used wine in it's dish, I will grate the ricotta more finely (my biggest mistake by far) or as finely as possible. I will use more dried red chili and black pepper, my dish didn't quite have the little kick the original did. But overall, pretty darn good for my first attempt.

And voila that is what I had for dinner this evening!