Ciao a tutti!
It’s been far too long since we’ve pulled a real Pasta et Al move! I’ve always wanted to put American mustard inside pasta, and I love any opportunity to provoke purists, so this week we are taking the flavours of the ubiquitously fantastic cheeseburger, and stuffing them into fagottini.
Our pasta is bobbing around in a tomato and bacon broth, with pickle juice stirred through. And our sesame seed dough is filled with a neat stack of American red cheddar, ketchup made from the strained broth tomatoes, mustard, and a mini beef hamburger patty containing the bacon from the broth.
First up, this was delicious. I’m all for experimentation and weirdness in the kitchen, but I’m not going to publish a recipe for any second-rate pasta. It oozes cheese, has a browned but soft patty, a hit of sweet and sour pickle, and it comes together looking a bit fancy.
We started it off with a simple broth, browning up the tomatoes and bacon before simmering everything on low for 45 minutes. Then we strained it and stirred in a good glug of pickle juice.
As always, don’t throw out your solids! The tomatoes and onions get blended in with apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, onion+garlic+mustard powders, and a little allspice to form a ketchup-esque sauce. And the bacon is blitzed together with beef mince and other meat patty ingredients, rolled into small meatballs and lightly fried.
To build these bad boys, roll out your sesame seed dough (just our standard egg+egg yolk dough, plus ½ tbsp sesame seeds per person), cut it into big squares, and then use something like a piping tip to cut out circles of Amercian red cheddar.
On each square, stack the cheese, ketchup, a squirt of mild American mustard, and a meatball.
Form the fagottini by bringing together the pasta corners in neighbouring pairs, pinching the very tips but leaving the top and edges open. Draw those same pinched corners together to meet above the filling, and press together to form a pyramid. Seal the remaining open edges.
Boil them in salted water, plate them in the broth, and sprinkle it all with toasted sesame seeds!
Pretty sure cheeseburgers and pasta were always meant to go together.
Buon appetito,
Al, Al, and El.
Ingredients
Broth
- 2 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 260 g cherry tomatoes whole
- 3-4 large slices free-range bacon
- 1 onion roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic peeled and lightly smashed
- 200 ml water
- 400 ml beef bone broth
- 100 ml cup sweet and sour pickle brine
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds
Ketchup
- Tomatoes onion, and garlic (left over from broth)
- 100 ml water
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp white sugar
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/8 tsp mustard powder
- Salt pepper, and allspice to taste
Pasta Dough
- 320 g 00 flour
- 80 g durum semolina flour
- 3 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds
- 1 tsp olive oil extra-virgin
- 1/2 tsp salt
Pasta Filling
- 200 g beef mince
- 100 g bacon leftover from the broth
- 20 g panko breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 60 g American red cheddar
- Mild American mustard to taste
Instructions
- Blister the cherry tomatoes in the olive oil, using a medium-hot casserole dish, for 5-6 minutes or until beginning to brown.
- Remove the tomatoes and add the bacon in their place, dropping the heat to medium and cooking until the bacon starts to look crispy (5-6 minutes).
- Lift the bacon out and add the onion and garlic, topping up the oil if required, and dropping the heat to low. Sauté for 8-10 minutes, stirring regularly.
- Reintroduce the tomatoes and bacon, and pour in the water and broth. Season to taste and allow to simmer partially covered for 45 minutes.
- While the broth is simmering, make the pasta dough by forming a flour well, and adding all other dough ingredients into the centre. Combine with a fork or your fingers, and shape into a shaggy ball. Knead vigorously for 10 minutes. Lightly wet your hands if the dough seems too dry, or add a little flour if too wet. Seal in cling wrap and rest for 30 minutes.
- Strain the broth liquid through a colander and then cheese cloth. Set aside the solids, and separate the bacon. Stir the pickle brine into the strained liquid.
- Add the strained solids, apart from the bacon, back into the pot with all other ketchup ingredients, raising the heat to medium and bringing it to a boil. Partially cover, lower the heat, and allow it to thicken; about 10 minutes, stirring regularly. Once cooled, blend until smooth and load into a piping bag with a medium round tip.
- Blend the bacon with the egg, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic and onion powders until a consistent texture, then mix into the beef and breadcrumbs; season. Shape into small walnut-sized meatballs (four serves should produce about 32).
- Fry the meatballs in a medium-high heat pan for 3-4 minutes, until the outside is beginning to colour; there should still be visible pink.
- Once the dough has rested, begin passing it through the pasta machine on the thickest setting a few times, folding over itself in between passes, before stepping through to a medium-thin thickness.
- Cut the pasta sheets into squares of 8 cm. Place a circle of cheese in the centre of each square. The circle should be about the same size as one of the meatballs (I cut them out with the wide end of a piping tip). On top of the cheese, squeeze a dollop of the homemade ketchup, followed by a squirt of mustard. Place a meatball on top of it all.
- To form into fagottini, bring the corners together in neighbouring pairs, pinching the very tips but leaving the top and edges open. Draw those same pinched corners together to meet above the filling, and press together to form a pyramid. Seal the remaining open edges. Transfer to baking paper lined, lightly semolina dusted oven tray until ready to cook.
- Drop the pasta into a large pot of salted boiling water, and cook for 4-5 minutes, until they puff and float, and no white dough is visible when the pasta is cut into.
- While they cook, dry fry 2 tbsp of sesame seeds on medium-high heat, for 2-3 minutes or until they begin to toast and brown.
- Plate up the pasta in the broth, with a light sprinkling of sesame seeds on top.
