Beet pasta stuffed with a cheese, mushroom, & walnut pate

During the month of February I am always inspired to create a new dish or two that not only is incredibly delicious but also gives nod to Valentines Day and is created for someone I love. This dish is dedicated to my husband who I love dearly and is always so supportive of my cooking endeavors and never complains about helping clean up the mess I make in the kitchen.

I will be up front; this recipe is not a quick one. Handmade pasta takes a while, but the effort is well worth it. You can make the pasta dough the night before to help conserve time; it may become a bit softer overnight and you may need to add a bit more flour while you roll it out.

The pasta used in this recipe is a beet pasta. The beet flavor adds a slight sweetness and wonderful pink color to the dough. To make the beet pasta, boil beets until they are soft. You need 3/4 c of beet puree at the end which you can get from 2 small beets or from 1 large beet. I cut the beets in small pieces to make the cooking process quick. I also puree them with the remaining water from the cooking process so that all the color that leached from them during the cooking goes back into the pasta dough.

Once the beets are soft I puree them in the blender. I then measure out the puree and save any extra for later use. The puree doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth at this point. The measured puree goes back in the blender and I add the egg and puree again until the puree is smooth and there are no visible beet chunks. I add the puree to the premeasured flour and salt and stir the dough until the liquid is all absorbed.

I remove the pasta dough from the bowl and knead it by hand for 6 minutes. At this point you may need to adjust the moisture level of the dough. Beet pasta is generally softer than other fresh pasta I make, but if it is too soft and sticking to your hands or the table, add a bit extra flour. If the dough is too firm to knead, you can add a bit more egg. After kneading, I divide my dough in half, wrap it in plastic wrap and allow it to rest for 20 minutes at a minimum.

While the pasta is resting, it is the perfect time to mix up the filling. To do so, I melt butter with the salt, thyme, garlic powder, and pepper on medium high heat in a frying pan on the stove. Once the butter is melted and the pan is hot, I add my mushrooms and cook them until they are soft. During the last one or two minutes of cooking, I add walnuts to give them a bit of a toasted flavor. The mushrooms and walnuts then go into the blender or food processor (I just rinse out the bowl I used for the beet puree and use that). They are blended with goat cheese and parmesan. You don’t need to puree this mixture; I think it is best when you still have a bit of texture in the filling. However, make sure everything is in very small pieces and well combined.

There is one important note here that I do need to call out. DON’T WASH THE PAN YOU COOKED THE MUSHROOMS IN. We will be using it later and any thyme or browned bits left in the pan are going to be needed.

Now that the pasta dough has rested, you can roll it out. You can do this by hand with a rolling pin or with a pasta roller. While I do love rolling pasta by hand and working it until it is so thin it is almost translucent… I save that for rare occasions when I have nothing on my agenda but cooking. The pasta roller works well for this recipe. I start by flattening the dough with my hands, then roll it through the pasta roller on its thickest setting. I continue rolling the dough through the roller until the thinnest setting is reached. If your pasta becomes to wide for the roller or too long to work with easily, fold it in half and roll it through the roller once more before moving to a lower setting. If your dough is a little soft or sticky, simply brush the surface with a very light dusting of flour.

I work with one half of the dough at a time so that the dough doesn’t dry out. Once I have rolled out the dough, I cut it (I use a circular cutter, but you can cut it with a square cutter or other shape if you desire) put a small amount of filling in the center and fold it. You can choose the size you want to make each pasta. I personally wanted to make them small and delicate for this recipe so I chose a 1 3/4 in circular cutter and used a heaping 1/8 tsp for filling. Always error on the side of under filling your pasta. If you overfill, the pasta will be much more likely to not seal well and break apart when you cook it.

To fold the pasta, I folded the circle in half to make a semi-circle pressing firmly to seal the filling in. Next, I took the two points of the semi-circle and brought them together and gave them a pinch to finish the shape.

To finish the pasta, I cooked them in boiling salt water for 3-5 minutes. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly. Don’t be surprised if your pasta fades a bit in the cooking process – it will become more pink than red as the cooking will draw a bit of the color out of the pasta.

The final step for this dish is the sauce. A red or cream sauce would overpower the flavors of this dish, so I opted for a simple browned butter for the topping. To accent the thyme flavor of the filling though and to maximize the nutty flavors of the browned butter, I browned my butter in the pan that I previously cooked the mushrooms in. To brown the butter, simple cook it on medium high heat, stirring it until it begins to darken in color. Once a medium brown is reached, remove it immediately and transfer to a different dish – residual heat can make your butter perfectly browned butter cook more and burn. When your pasta is ready, plate it and drizzle the butter over top.

And there you have it – beet pasta, filled with savory goodness and topped with nutty thyme-accented butter. Garnish the pasta with a few tender thyme leaves and serve with your favorite wine, a light salad, and candlelight for the perfect romantic dinner.

– The Recipe –