Agnolotti Del Plin are a variation of agnolotti that is made by a pinch or "plin" from the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. It's a dish that requires some time and love to make and that's why it's reserved for special occasions like Christmas. It's a show stopper that can be served as a little appetizer or as a main course. Either way, it's equally as stunning to make for the holidays.
Ingredients
Pasta dough:
- 454 grams ’00’ flour
- 5 whole large eggs - about 265- 270 grams, beaten
Filling:
- 3½ - 4 pounds bone-in beef short ribs - select meaty pieces, avoided the super fatty ones
- kosher salt - to taste
- 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 small carrot - roughly chopped
- 1 small onion - roughly chopped
- 1 stalk celery - roughly chopped
- 5-7 cloves garlic - smashed
- 1½ cups red wine
- 10 whole black peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 stem fresh thyme
- 1 stem fresh rosemary
- 1 stem fresh sage
- 5 cups chicken bone broth
- 1 bunch spinach - washed
- 3 cloves garlic - sliced
- black pepper - to taste
- 1 cup parmigiano reggiano cheese - divided
Sauce:
- 2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter - or truffle butter
- kosher salt - to taste
- pepper - to taste
Instructions
Make the pasta (best to make a day ahead):
- Build a well of flour on the table and pour the beaten eggs into the center.
- Using a fork, beat the egg like you’re scrambling it while slowly incorporating the flour from the wall.
- Work it until the egg has the consistency of thick pancake batter.
- Use a bench scraper and start to fold and cut in the flour until the mixture comes together and forms a ball.
- Begin kneading the dough. If it is sticky, add a tiny bit of flour at a time until it’s no longer sticky but be careful not to add too much to make the dough dry. If it’s too dry, quickly run your hands under a light stream of water and continue to knead the dough, slowly working in the moisture from your hands until the dough feels properly hydrated.
- Knead for 5-10 minutes, folding and rolling the dough onto itself.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes to continue to hydrate and soften.
- After 15 minutes, knead the dough again for about 5-10 more minutes, it should be softer and much easier to knead. Wrap the dough in a piece of plastic and if you want to use that day, let it rest at room temp until you’re ready to use, otherwise, for best results, rest in the fridge overnight. (Note: be sure to pull the dough out about 30 minutes before you want to make pasta)
Make the short rib filling:
Season (overnight) and brown the short ribs:
- Season the short ribs on all sides with kosher salt. If you can let them sit uncovered overnight in the fridge, that’s best.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Get a large dutch oven on medium-high heat on the stove and once hot, add some olive oil and begin searing the short ribs on all sides. Remove to a plate and set aside.
Sautée the aromatics:
- Add the carrot, onion, celery, and garlic and sautée until the vegetables begin to brown.
- Once the vegetables are browned and the aroma is smelling roasty, deglaze the pot with the wine and then reduce by at least half.
- Add the peppercorn, bay leaf, and herbs along with the chicken broth and bring to a boil.
Braise the beef:
- Add the beef back to the pot, then pop a lid on it and transfer it to the oven to cook, covered, for 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, remove the lid, and cook for an additional 1 hour.
- After 3 hours of cooking, the short ribs should be falling off the bone and tender, remove from the cooking liquid and then strain out the cooking liquid in a fat separator to let cool. That mixture will separate into the short rib/bone marrow fat and then what is essentially a reduced stock or Demi glaze. We will need both of those for the filling.
Sautée the garlic and spinach:
- While the short ribs cool, wash the spinach and dry it well.
- Slice up 3 cloves of garlic.
- Get a high rimmed pan on the stove and once hot, add enough oil to coat the pan and then add the garlic.
- Cook the garlic until it begins to brown.
- Immediately add all the spinach to the pan, and with a spatula, smash the spinach into the pan. This will help it wilt faster and release its moisture into the hot pan where it will quickly evaporate.
- Move the spinach and get it tossed around the oil and garlic and once it’s fully wilted but still bright dark green, get it out of the pan to cool.
Process and chill the filling:
- Once the short ribs have cooled, remove any sinew.
- Add all the meat and the edible fat to a food processor along with the spinach, 1/2 cup of Parmigiano Reggiano, 1/4 cup of the reserved Demi glaze, a few tablespoons of the short rib fat, salt, and pepper, and process until the mixture is blended and smooth.
- Taste, adjust the seasoning if needed, then transfer to a piping bag and chill until ready to use.
Make the agnolotti:
Roll the pasta:
- If the pasta was in the fridge, make sure it comes up to room temp before rolling.
- Cut the dough into 1/4’s, wrapping 3 of the pieces until ready to use.
- Flatten out the remaining piece of dough with your hands into a rectangle and then run it through the “0” setting of the pasta machine.
- Set the machine to “1” and roll the dough through again.
- Repeat that process until you’ve run the down through setting “8” and then transfer that long piece of dough to the counter and cut it into 2 or 3 manageable rectangles.
Fill the pasta:
- Cut the tip off the piping bag of filling about the width of your thumb.
- Starting at the corner edge of the dough closest to you, begin piping approximately 1 tablespoon dollops of filling about a thumbs width from both edges of the dough, and leaving about a thumb's width between each dollop, allowing you space to pinch the dough with your thumb.
- Repeat till you get to the other side of the sheet of dough, again leaving space at the edge.
- Spritz the dough with a little water in a spray bottle (you can also use egg wash).
- Take the edge of the dough closet to you and then fold it over the filling until the edge of the dough closest to you is now wrapped around the filling. You should be able to see the filling and the spaces in between the filling.
- Using your two thumbs and index fingers, go through and pinch the spaces between the filling so that the double layer of dough that meets now is pressed down to a single layer of dough and the filling is now sealed inside.
- Once all the dough is pinched, using a fluted pasta cutter, cut most of the excess dough from the unwrapped long edge, leaving about a thumbs width of dough left flat on the board.
- Spritz one more time with water, the again using the fluted edge of the pasta cutter, cut off both edges of the dough, and the cut at each pinch of the dough makes the agnolotti del pain.
- Once cut, place on a sheet tray with plenty of semolina flour until the rest of the pasta is made.
Cook and sauce the pasta:
- Get a pot of water up to a boil and then salt it generously.
- Next to that pot, get a large pan on the stove.
- To that pan, add the rest of the Demi glaze, 1 extra cup of chicken broth and another splash of the red wine.
- Turn the heat up to high and begin to reduce that down to a glaze.
- Drop the pasta into the water and cook for about 3 minutes. There are lots of touch points in the pasta so even if the pasta is floating after 1 minute, it still needs 3 minutes in the water to properly cook this pasta.
- After 3 minutes, the broth should be well on its way to reducing, add the pasta to the reduction with no other pasta water other than what the pasta dragged with it.
- Continue cooking on high until the broth is reduced down to a glaze that is coating each piece of pasta.
- Shut the heat off and toss in a knob of truffle butter (regular unsalted butter also works) and then swirl and toss the pasta allowing the residual heat of the pan to slowly melt that butter into the reduction to finish this sauce. The sauce should be thick, it should stick to the pasta and be rich and delicious.
To serve:
- You could serve this as a first course on Christmas by serving only a few agnolotti on each plate, give a nice clean presentation with a little sauce around the pasta and finish with Parmigiano Reggiano. In that case it would serve a lot more people. Or you could serve as a main with large portions and serve maybe 6 people.