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Date Night Dinner | Basics with Babish

May 30, 2021
- My partner inspires me every day and appreciates everything that makes me me. And what better way to celebrate our romance than with this spirit of a remote, wild island off the coast of Scotland. Thanks to today's sponsor, Jess and I are enjoying Islay Dry Botanical Gin with a trio of martinis, dry, dirty and one with a hint of sweet. These botanical martinis will perfectly complete our evening meal. Let's start saying: I love you with great food and great cocktails. Let's get down to the

basics

. (upbeat music) Alright, for this

date

night

, we're going to make marquees, a pasta, and a dessert, and I'm going to show you how to make three different types of each.
date night dinner basics with babish
This way you can choose the one you like the most. You can mix and match, or you can make all three for a tasting menu of sorts. And to make the

night

of cooking together as easy and fun as possible, we'll start with what you can do ahead of time. First, a delicious chocolate cake without flowers. I'm going to start with some crafts to line six ounce pans with parchment paper on the bottom and sides. To line the bottom, I fold a square of parchment paper into a triangle by pressing the tip of the triangle into the center of the pan and using my freshly cut nails to press a crease around the inside edge of the cup.
date night dinner basics with babish

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This will act as a cutting guide. And if we cut around that edge, it will give us a perfect little circle of parchment paper custom designed for our pans. Then the line towards the sides, we cut a strip of parchment paper at the same height as the sides of our molds, pressing it inward and cutting the overlap. This recipe is for four cakes. So if my math is correct, I'll repeat this three more times, then once we've cut out all the pieces, we'll generously grease both the molds and the paper with non-stick spray. This will help firmly adhere the paper to the inside of the cups.
date night dinner basics with babish
With all those guys prepared, we are ready to start making our butter. First, we need six ounces of high-quality dark chocolate of your choice. I like to shoot around 60%. Then to make sure it melts easily, we will chop it very finely and set it aside. And then a heat tested bowl along with one ounce of Dutch process cocoa powder, half a teaspoon each, instant espresso powder and kosher salt, and four and a half ounces of room temperature unsalted butter. Mix that into a paste and set aside and on the stove, combine three ounces of sugar with a third cup of water, bring it to a boil over low heat, making sure all the sugar is dissolved, taking off the heat. and pouring directly over our chocolate mixture.
date night dinner basics with babish
So we're going to want to let this sit for 30 seconds of just 30 seconds, okay, I'll wait. This will give the chocolate and butter a chance to soften and warm up so that when we start whisking lightly, it will quickly emulsify into a thick, creamy ganache. This will act as the chocolate part of our flowerless chocolate cake. Now we have to do the cake part. Place three eggs at room temperature and one and a half ounces of sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Then I'll beat it on medium-high speed for about three minutes until it has almost tripled in volume and reaches the ribbon stage where the mixture luxuriously comes off the beater like ribbons.
Now we will simply add our chocolate ganache mixture to the party and mix until smooth. You don't have to be too gentle with it. This is not like egg whites, you're not going to deflate it too much. Once it's evenly combined and your wrist hurts, we'll divide it evenly between our pre-paper molds. You may notice that I only have three here and that's because I thought this would only make three cakes. Turns out there are four. That's why I'm here to ruin the math so you guys don't have to. Next, we placed them in a tall waltz saucepan or cake pan and filled that pan about three-quarters of the way up the sides of the pans with cold water.
They are then placed in a 300 degree Fahrenheit oven for 60 to 70 minutes until they are puffed and relatively set, but slightly jiggly when moved. Remove from the bath, place on a rack to cool, and once completely cool, they can be wrapped and refrigerated for at least four hours and up to three days. Now, I mentioned that we are making three different variations of each dish in this meal. For pies, we'll look at a few different types of sauces. First, one of my favorites, a simple cream over frosting. We're combining five ounces each of milk and heavy cream on the stove with half a teaspoon of kosher salt and bringing it to a simmer.
While that's starting to bubble, we're going to scrape out a large vanilla bean, and into a medium heatproof bowl, separate out three, wrong container, here we go. There go the egg whites. We are separating three large egg yolks. And we beat those yolks together with three tablespoons of sugar, adding our vanilla extracts and beating until smooth and creamy. So, a crème anglaise is very similar to a custard that is not cooked as much. So we're bringing our cream and milk mixture to just barely simmering and gently labeling about half of it into the eggs while whisking constantly.
Then we beat the tempered eggs again with the milk and cream and cook over medium-low heat while whisking constantly until it reaches about 180 degrees Fahrenheit. This should be the point at which the mixture stops foaming and reaches a stage known as napa, where it can thickly coat the back of a spoon and leave a clean trail when wiped with a finger. At this point, we will remove it from the heat and add about a tablespoon of butter. Once fully incorporated, it's time to strain the heaven, let it cool to room temperature and refrigerate, pressing a layer of plastic wrap against the surface of the custard to prevent skin from forming.
Our next sauce option is a simple raspberry coulis. We have half a pint of rinsed raspberries, half a cup of sugar, a tablespoon of water, combined in a saucepan, mashed, brought to a simmer and cooked for about five to six minutes until very fine. A kind of liquid raspberry pre-jam. And we are going to strain this, optionally we add a tablespoon of orange lacunar, we let it cool to room temperature and in the same way we cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Lastly, one I'm especially excited about: a bourbon caramel sauce. In a medium saucepan there is about a tablespoon of corn syrup, a third of a cup of water and a cup of sugar that we are going to bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
We will let this cook for between three and five minutes until it turns a deep amber color, you could even say caramel color. At this point, turn off the heat and slowly add half a cup of heavy cream at room temperature, whisking constantly. It will bubble and sizzle vigorously, so be sure to wear gloves. Once everything has calmed down, we can add a strong pinch of kosher salt. It is illegal to not salt caramel and one-third cup of high-quality bourbon. Let cool and like the other sauces, cover and refrigerate until ready to use. And so, we already have the dessert made and sprinkled.
Now it's time to take a look at some canopies. First, my personal favorite, a roasted eggplant spread known as caponata. Once we're done playing with it, we'll cut a large eggplant into one-inch slices that we'll place on a paper towel-lined baking sheet and sprinkle generously on both sides with kosher salt. We will let them sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes, which will make them weep a bitter liquid that, of course, we will remove with more paper towels. This is great practice for almost any eggplant application. In our case, we placed them on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzled them with a little olive oil, gave them a few turns of freshly ground black pepper, tossed them to ensure even coating, and roasted them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes, turning once halfway through cooking, until lightly browned and completely tender.
While they cool, we head to the stove where we heat about two tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmering, add a small chopped onion, and sweat for about three minutes. Once the onion is soft and translucent around the edges, we add a clove of minced garlic, let it sit for about 30 seconds or until fragrant, and add a red bell pepper and two medium-sized tomatoes, both settled and diced. We are also adding a tablespoon of sugar, two tablespoons of chopped green olive, a tablespoon of capers, holding the cup if we can. And once it's cool enough to handle, our roasted eggplant is cut into one-inch cubes.
Now we're going to slow cook this whole thing for about 30 minutes until they're all super tender, sweet and delicious. Add small splashes of water as needed if it becomes too dry, season to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, let cool, and refrigerate until ready to serve. Whether you prefer it hot or cold, this will be a delicious topping for our crostini in the future. Next, a Tuscan white bean sauce. Season a small shallot and about a tablespoon of olive oil until softened about three minutes, add half a teaspoon of thyme, a teaspoon of sage and two cloves of crushed garlic for another 30 seconds or until fragrant, then add one , there may be white cannellini beans rinsed and drained, killing the heat and simply tossing them to coat.
Next, the zest of a small lemon, a pinch of kosher salt and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper. This guy then heads straight to the food processor along with an eighth of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and the juice of our apple, mentioned lemon zest. Go ahead and start mixing that, and while the machine is running, we're going to pour a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil into the opening, we're going to keep processing until the mixture is completely smooth. Taste for seasoning. Then this guy will head to the refrigerator until we're ready to use it.
Now for the main course, I'll show you how to make different types of stuffed pasta. And for that we need pasta dough. And I recently discovered the world's easiest way to make it in the food processor. Instead of a food processor, where you combine 7.5 ounces of all-purpose flour, one teaspoon of kosher salt, and five ounces of eggs. Then we close and crush and let it process for 60 seconds. Just like with food processing or pizza dough, this will create beautiful gluten development and achieve what would take us 10 minutes to do by hand. In the end you should end up with a soft, elastic dough that bounces when pushed, knead it a little by hand just to show you care quickly and wrap it in plastic and chill it until ready to use overnight.
Now I'll show you how to make three different types of pasta fillings with three different dipping sauces. Let's start with pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and sage sauce. For the filling, we'll start with two cups of peeled and diced butternut squash, three cloves of peeled and minced garlic, one small shallot peeled and cut in half, three chopped fresh sage leaves, two sprigs of picked fresh thyme leaves , a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, a teaspoon of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper and a tablespoon of maple syrup to accompany the natural sweetness of the butter and pumpkins.
Toss everything to coat evenly, pour onto a rimmed baking sheet, cover tightly with aluminum foil and poke a couple of holes to help steam escape. We then roast this guy at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 to 40 minutes until the squash is completely tender and shows little to no resistance when stabbed with a knife. We'll let this guy cool completely before dumping it into a food processor along with two ounces of marscapone cheese and a teaspoon of white wine vinegar. They are processed together for about 60 seconds or until completely smooth and seasoned to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
And just like that, your pumpkin filling is ready to refrigerate. It's a new sauce from the company, a brown butter and sage sauce. It doesn't really require any preparation, but it can save you a little time if you brown the butter beforehand. I have eight ounces of unsalted butter that I am cooking and stirring constantly over medium heat until the milk solids separate and turn toasty. If you've refrigerated it and then left it at room temperature before making it, you can mix it up and make sure all the nice tan and brown bits are evenly distributed throughout.
Next up for all you cheese enthusiasts out there, we have a four cheese tortelloni with a bright and tangy vodka sauce.In a medium bowl, we combine six ounces of ricotta, two ounces of grated parmesan, two ounces of grated asiago, and four ounces of grated whole, low-moisture mozzarella. Mainly, you'll add a quarter teaspoon of dried oregano, two or three finely chopped fresh basil leaves, a large beaten egg, and something that always goes well and a creamy, cheesy Italian thing. About a quarter teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg. We will also add a teaspoon of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
We want to try to season as many layers of our dishes as possible. Mix it until you get a homogeneous paste and then you can hang it in the refrigerator until we are ready to fill our paste. It also goes with the sauce, it is very quick and easy, but you can make two in advance. Sauté a small chopped onion and a tablespoon and a half of olive oil for about three minutes until soft and translucent, adding a clove of chopped garlic, and between a quarter and a full teaspoon of red pepper flakes depending on how spicy you like it. like.
Saute them together for about 30 seconds before adding a full six ounce can of tomato paste, cook for about two minutes until it's nice and toasty and starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, turn off the heat and deglaze with about a third . of a cup of vodka. Make sure the flame is off or you could lose your eyebrows. Once it has mostly evaporated, we return the heat to medium, add half a teaspoon of dried oregano and cook for about two minutes, long enough to make sure all the alcohol has evaporated. Then we lower the heat to minimum, slowly and in stages, adding three quarters of a cup of heavy cream at room temperature.
This will help prevent the crane from bending. Once it is fully incorporated, we turn off the heat, seasoning to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper, and once cooled, this type can be refrigerated with a plastic graphic pressed against a surface to prevent the formation of skin. Lastly, a sausage and cheese tortelloni with broccoli rabe pasta. To make the filling, we added one spicy brown Italian sausage, about eight ounces, to a little oil, crushing it into very, very small pieces, resorting to using a potato masher if necessary. We just want to score a little and make sure the sausage is cooked through before draining it on paper towels to remove all the excess fat.
While the sausage cools and drains, we are going to make a cheese delivery system for sausage. Combining five ounces of ricotta, one ounce of grated parmesan, and our cooled sausage. And in addition to some freshly ground black pepper, we need something to bring it all together, like a large beaten egg. This should help give our tortelloni a nice, cohesive filling. Once you have everything well mixed, well combined and homogeneous and all the other words that I use regularly, this like all the others will be ready for the refrigerator. Broccoli rabe and Italian sausage are a story as old as time.
So we are making a pasta rabe with broccoli to accompany this pasta. We will need approximately eight broths of broccoli rabe with all the leaves removed, one about a quarter pound once the leaves are removed. Then we briefly blanch our broccoli. Just a minute or two and lightly salted boiling water will protect the flavor and color of the broccoli rabe in the pasta-making process. We shock our rabe in an ice bath and dry it completely with a clean kitchen towel. The more moisture you get out of there, the better you don't want a watery paste and replacing our BR drain in the bowl of a food processor, along with a quarter cup of toasted and cooled walnuts, two large cloves of minced garlic. , a hearty serving of about half a cup of Parmesan cheese, a generous pinch of salt, a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper, and six tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
Process this into a fine paste and paste, you have paste, sorry. And like basil paste, this one doesn't discolor in the refrigerator and can be hung until we're ready to use it. This concludes the pre-preface segment of the episode. Now we are getting into the new things we have to do at

dinner

time. First, we have to make crostini for our sprints. We do this by simply cutting a loaf of bread thinly on the diagonal. Place them on a wire rack, place them on a rimmed baking sheet, brushing them with a little olive oil and sprinkling with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
These guys are then placed in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about five minutes until lightly browned, crispy on the edges, and crostini. There you go. And once cold, they are ready to receive our different toppings. For the white bean sauce, we will simply put a tablespoon on each crostini and both for flavor. And so that they are not so simple, we are going to decorate them with some chives cut diagonally. I'm not a big guy, but these guys are a delicious, elegant, and easy prelude to any Italian

dinner

. Next, in the same way, with the caponata, we will pile it on each crostini.
This time garnishing with a little Julianne Bazell and there you have it, a caponata crostini. And as for the third, it requires no prior preparation. And it's one of my favorite things in the world. This crostini is just a dollop of ricotta cheese topped with a Marcona almond or hazelnut and drizzled with honey. I have made them for numerous dinners and they are always the ones that disappear the fastest. And they are the only ones that I can't help but preview before publishing. Now we get to the complicated part, rolling out, filling and shaping our pasta.
Of course, this can be done by hand, but it requires a significant amount of effort and no one wants to be exhausted for their

date

night dinner. So I'm going to use a pasta roller. And I must say that this food processor pasta turned out wonderfully. Normally I recommend laminating the pasta dough a couple of times, that is, rolling it out, folding it, and rolling it out again. But the food processor developed such good gluten that it wasn't necessary. Just roll and continue. And once cooked, the pasta is perfect with a little Al Dente. Now, this episode is getting quite long and I've already thoroughly explained how to roll out and shape filled pasta.
If you want to see my video and how to do it, click the link in the top right corner right now. But if I must say, we are forming the ravioli by placing spoonfuls of our filling spaced on the bottom half of the pasta sheet, sealing it with a moistened fingertip and cutting it into decorative shapes. For the tortelloni, we cut the pasta into squares, place our filling in the center, leave two edges of the square with water with our finger, fold them in half and press hard so that the filling does not leak, then join the two corners. around our finger to form tortelloni.
For tortelloni it is very similar, but this time we cut the dough into slices. Place our sausage filling in the center, sew one side together, press closed and stretch the two corners around the back to form tortelloni. Like I said, I'm not going to get into the technique too much here because my real advice for making pasta is that on date night, it's a great time to recruit your partner. All the preparation is done and out of the way. It ends up taking half the time and you feel like you're doing crafts together. It's fun. So go ahead and get an apron for your loved one.
Reopen my other video, in the upper right corner, click on the link, remove your hair from your face and let's get to work making pasta together. Even with a camera crew present, it ends up being a sweet, silly, romantic experience. Then, once you have the pasta ready and sprinkled, all that's left to do is cook, sauce, and decorate. First, to make the tortelloni with vodka, I am going to fry some thin slices of bacon and a little vegetable oil for about five minutes or until they have lost their fat and are very crispy. , set them aside, save that oil and let some water boil so you can start cooking the pasta.
We'll add our first sauce to the oil over medium-low heat just to warm it up a little. Let our four cheese tortelloni cook for no more than 60 seconds until it begins to float and pour directly into your waiting pasta sauce, toss to coat and continue cooking over medium and low heat to let the flavors come together. If the sauce starts to break up, go ahead and add a splash of the pasta cooking water and it will re-emulsify. Pile it high and on a warm plate and get ready to decorate. The procedure is very similar for sausage tortelloni and pasta rabe with broccoli.
We lightly heat the sauce in a pan while we cook the pasta and join the two together once the tortelloni begin to float. For this one, you'll definitely want to add a quarter cup of pasta cooking water for an extra creamy emulsified sauce. Don't be afraid to add more as needed, keep stirring and finish with the freshly grated Parmesan cheese for extra Parmesan points. For Pumpkin Ravioli and Browned Butter Sauce, we heat our pre-browned butter until foaming or simply brown the butter if you didn't pre-brown it and add two large cloves of crushed garlic and a few fresh sage leaves.
We will let them fry for about 30 seconds while the pasta cooks. We don't want anyone to get burned. And as soon as the garlic is lightly browned and the sage is softened, add the cooked ravioli. This will also need a generous amount of water to cook the pasta. Otherwise, you'll end up with a greasy, oily mess. This, along with a small gradation of the Parmesan cheese, will make for a creamy, luxurious sauce. If it starts to break down or starts to look greasy, remove it from the heat and give it more water. And there you have it friends, three different possibilities for three different Date Night dishes.
Sausage and cheese tortelloni with broccoli rabe pasta, which I'm going to garnish with more cheese and some sundried tomato cutlets. For cheese tortelloni with creamy spicy vodka sauce and crispy pancetta, brown squash, fried sage and garlic ravioli, and Tuscan white bean and ricotta caponata with honey toppings. And so, whether you've made one of these dishes or all nine, all that's left to do is share them with someone. They are all made from scratch. All of them can be prepared well in advance. They are all made with love and all are members of the clean plate club.
Look, she even has her own fork of hers as a sign of approval. What could make this date night better? Well, I think three different excellent martinis from today's sponsor, the botanical gin. First, for our Valentine's Day pomegranate martini, we'll need some freshly harvested thyme. You can also harvest from your refrigerator, perhaps a sultry look to set the mood. A heaping spoonful of Errol's pomegranate. Those are the pomegranate seed pods that we are going to crush with two and a half parts of botanical gin. This will give them both their pomegranate flavor and color. We'll let it sit for two hours before straining it and pouring it over ice into our favorite mixing glass, along with half a part of dry vermouth, go ahead and mix it vigorously until the glass is chilled and diluted to your preference. , strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass and garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme.
But like everything else today, we'll do three variations. Deep for the most classic dry martini, well, it's the same recipe, but without infusing the gin. And instead of fresh thyme, we'll garnish this guy with an elegant slice of lemon peel. Do you prefer things a little dirtier? Well, for a dirty martini, again, two and a half parts botanical gin, but this time we added a quarter of olive brine in addition to our half part of driving movida. Blend until cold and thin, pour into a chilled Nick and Nora glass and garnish with three stuffed olives. And there you have three different types of martinis to go with your three different types of everything else.
Oh and the cakes, I almost completely forgot about the cakes. Run a thin knife along the outside of the parchment. And these guys should break out of the mold. Remove the parchment paper from the sides and bottom and sauce as desired with pipes or pools or large dripping spoonfuls. These guys also respond very well to a big dollop of whipped cream. Whether you like your martinis dry, dirty, or with a twist, the button brings out the best in this classic cocktail. A botanical martini, delicious on its own, pairs perfectly with this three-course meal and that special someone.
Mix one up this Valentine's Day or whenever you want, order a bottle of the botanical for home delivery on Drizly. The link is in the video description, greetings. (soft music)

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