Pretty in Pink or perhaps, Romance with Rosé
Rose-shaped pasta with Rosé
It’s early February, and while there is a chill in the air, our minds are drifting forward, dreaming of Spring. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and the romance of the day calls for brighter notes. With the task of creating a romantic pairing for a Rosé wine, I took to Instagram.
Scrolling through Instagram…yes, it can be significant time-suckage, but it can also be filled with inspiration! I get sucked into food photography and recipes. You eat with your eyes, right? It was there that I found my inspiration for this month’s “Pretty in Pink” theme for #WinePW and our Combined Wine Writers Group.
This month, we are led by Cam of Culinary Cam as we pair Pink wines for Valentine’s Day. These wines can be from anywhere in the world! You will find links to my colleagues’ articles at the bottom.
We will do a Threads chat on February 10th, 2024, at 8 am Pacific / 11 am Eastern. Head onto Threads, and you can search for #WinePW to join the conversation or follow @culinary_cam! She will be leading the discussion!
Rose-shaped pasta – The Inspiration
I came upon a video for rose-shaped pasta from @joyfulhomecooking. I tweaked it a bit with a pasta recipe from Serious Eats and a bit of help from @Saltyseattle.
This was a trial and error process, working through the recipe and adjusting. Even without all the testing, this recipe is time-consuming, so make it a labor of love.
The basic idea is to roast beets to add color. The pasta is made and rolled thin. We tried it at 5 and 6 on the pasta maker and finally settled on 7. The various recipes had different options for making the roses. One had circles of pasta overlapping, each with a dollop of filling, then folded and rolled from the end. The other had a 3-inch band, with the edges cut in a wavy design, then a strip of filling, folded in half and then rolled from the end. This second one had more filling but was a bit more fragile, with the plump filling at the bottom. After testing, we opted for the first method.
The filling itself was a riff on @Joyfulhomecooking’s recipe with ricotta, walnuts, and Parmigiano Reggiano (which I subbed in some Grano Padano and another hard cheese I had handy). It gets a bit of fresh nutmeg and salt and pepper. I found it way too thick for my piping bag and thinned it with a bit of heavy crème and water.
The sauce was simple and luxurious, with peas, chicken stock, tarragon, and crème. My fresh tarragon is at its end for the season, so I supplemented it with dried tarragon.
Now to the cooking the pasta. The method of cooking suggested by Saltyseattle was to place these into a pan with about 1 to 1.5 inches of boiling water. The idea is to boil the bottom with the filling and steam the top portion to cook. We tried this boiling for 3 to 4 minutes, but in the end, it did not properly cook the top. Perhaps she rolled her pasta thinner, and/or with her ribbon method of cutting the pasta, it was easier to cook…I couldn’t make it work for me, sadly.
I spent 2 additional days testing the pasta and cooking times. We settled on rolling to #7 (although if you can take it thinner, by all means do!). A cooking time of 11-12 minutes seemed to work best to get the interior appropriately cooked so that you are not left with a center of stodgy, uncooked pasta.
I was able to make 24 pasta roses when rolled to #7 and cut into 2 5/8 inch circles. I did take my extra bits from the cuttings and put them back through the pasta roller.
After boiling, these spend a bit more time lounging in melted butter before being plated in a puddle of pea sauce and topped with grated cheese, arugula sprouts, and dried rose petals (I mean, if you’ve got them, and you’ve spent this much time, why not take it over the edge!)
My roses came out deep red and faded on the edges as I cooked them. If you are looking for something pinker, add less beet puree!
The Wine: a Rosé from Tablas Creek!
There was a bottle of Tablas Creek Dianthus in our wine fridge. While we tend to go through rosé quickly in our house (rosé wines can pair with such a wide variety of foods), The Dianthus is typically the last rosé left. I love this wine, and whenever I dip into the wine fridge, I look longingly at it and then try to save it for a special occasion. So, in the chill of February, I have this glorious bottle to pull out and enjoy! (Sometimes saving a bottle for another day is a good thing!)
2022 Dianthus Tablas Creek Vineyard
From the Regenerative Organic Certified Tablas Creek Vineyard in the Adelaida District of Paso Robles, this wine is 45% Mourvèdre, 38% Grenache, 16% Counoise, and 1% Cinsault.
This is an estate wine that spends 24-48 hours on the skins and ferments to dry in stainless steel. It is Mouvèdre driven, as is the style in the southern Rhône (think Bandol). The color of this wine brings to mind Tavel, where the rosés are deeply colored and age beautifully. You might note that this wine is a 2022.
The name “Dianthus” refers to a genus of flowers, which includes carnations and Sweet William. They are often called “pinks.”
The grapes for this wine come from vines planted from clippings from Chateau du Beaucastel in 1994. They planted just a few rows of Counoise, Cinsault, Grenache & Mourvèdre on a hill. These early plantings tend to ripen late, so they use them for rosé and co-ferment the different varieties. The juice is drained from the skins, fermented until dry, and then supplemented with juice from other lots of estate fruit.
The color of this wine leans to orange or salmon tones. It is rich. This is a rosé you can contemplate. There is texture to this wine with red fruit notes and a bit of tangy greenness, like when you get a bite close to the rind of a watermelon. There is a mineral note, chalk, and saline that add dimension to the wine.
13% abv – 900 cases produced – $40.00 SRP (yes, yet another reason to hold this for a special occasion)
Tablas Creek Vineyard
Tablas Creek is a leader in moving beyond sustainability when it comes to viticulture and everything that goes into wine. They farm regeneratively, with low till methods and no chemicals. They have solar panels to produce energy. They have sheep that graze in the vineyard, mowing and fertilizing as they go. In their tasting room, they use kegged wine for many of their selections! There is no point in putting wine in a glass bottle to carry it 20 feet to a table to pour!
They make another rosè, the Patelin de Tablas Rosé, which is typically lighter in color and is sourced 7 appellations in Paso Robles, which they package in a 3-liter box in addition to a bottle. This packaging is so much better for the environment! But you have to get it fast! The boxes sell out quickly when they are released!
Jason Haas, General Manager at Tablas Creek, just wrote a great piece on their award-winning blog “The quest for sustainability: wine’s “yes, and” moment.” (I encourage you to give it a read!)
The Pairing: Rose-shaped pasta in a pea sauce
When you watch cooking shows, they always discuss having acid in the dish. I, for one, believe that the acid can come from your pairing! This wine brought rich acidity to the pairing, balancing the sweet, rich pea sauce. The wine has some tannins that picked up on the walnut tannins in the filling. There are notes of rose petals in the wine, which melded and enhanced the dried rose petals garnishing the dish.
The wine balances the dish in another way. This dish is BRIGHT! The rose-shaped pasta is elegant but a little silly, too, and this wine brought a serious note.
More on Rosé from the #WinePW Writers!
Here are all the posts from my Colleagues! Don’t forget to join us on Threads on Saturday, February 10th, at 8 am Pacific or 11 am Eastern. Find us on Threads using #WinePW!
Is Pink Wine the New Winter White? by My Full Wine Glass
Kimchi Spaghetti with Black Girl Magic Rosé by Cooking Chat
- Marry Me Chicken and Cantina Zaccagnini Il Vino Dal Tralcetto Rose; A Perfect Pairing for your Valentine by A Day in the Life on the Farm
- Oltrepo’ Cruasé Wines Paired With Sette Cene Extravaganza by Avvinare
Pink Pét-Nats from Around the World with Some Loved Up Bites by Culinary Cam
Please Be Vine Rosé Bubbles! by The Quirky Cork
Salmon en Papillote with Coopers Hawk Katie Lee Biegel Rosé by Our Good Life
Shrimp Scampi Pizza Paired with Masciarelli Montepulciano Rosé by Vino Travels
Rose-shaped pasta with a pea sauce
These beautiful rosebud-shaped pasta are filled with a walnut, ricotta, and cheese filling and luxuriate in a pool of creamy pea and tarragon sauce.
It is a little time-intensive, but the results are worth it! Pair it with your favorite rosé and serve it up to someone you love!
Ingredients
Pasta
- 1 to 2 medium red beets
- olive oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 3/4 cup OO flour
- 1/4 cup Semolina flour
- 2 tbsp butter
Filling
- 1/2 cup ricotta
- 3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
- 1 cup a freshly grated hard cheese
- 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- salt
- pepper
Sauce
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic sliced
- 1 shallot sliced
- 2 cups of peas (fresh or defrosted)
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 tbsp of fresh or dried tarragon
- salt
- white pepper
Garnish
- Arugula sprouts
- Dried rose petals
- Parmigiano Reggiano
Instructions
Beet puree
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Scrub the beets and trim off the greens and any extensive root end.
Place each beat on an individual square of aluminum foil about 12 x 12.
Drizzle with olive oil and wrap them up, gathering the foil on the top.
Place them on the center rack of the oven on a lined cookie sheet (this will help in case any of the juices manage to squeeze out.
Roast for 45 min to 1 hr (a knife will easily slide in when they are ready.
Allow them to cool.
When they are easy to handle, unwrap and peel away the skin. Dice them, place them in a food processor or blender, and puree until smooth.
Set this puree aside.
Making the Pasta Dough
Mix the two flours, make a well, and add the egg and beet puree. Incorporate until sticky. Incorporate additional flour, folding and turning for 2 to 5 minutes until the dough is firm and dry.
Continue turning and kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic, adding water or flour if needed.
Wrap in plastic wrap and rest for 30 minutes.
Filling
Mix the chopped walnuts, ricotta, and grated cheese.
Add the freshly grated nutmeg and olive oil.
Season with salt and pepper.
Filling and cooking the Pasta
Cut the rested pasta into quarters, wrapping the sections you are not using to keep them from drying.
Roll the 1st piece into a long rectangle about 1/4 inch thick and no more than the width of your pasta maker.
Set the pasta maker on the widest setting, roll the pasta through twice on each setting, then turn it down to the next setting.
Repeat until you are at the setting of 7 flouring with semolina flour between each pass.
Cut the pasta into 2 and 5/8-inch circles.
Lay the 5-6 pasta circles out, overlapping slightly.
Pipe the filling into the center of each circle. Paint water on the top half and fold the pasta over, sealing it.
Roll the pasta up from one end, again sealing it with water.
Boil in small batches in salted water for 11-12 minutes.
Melt 2 tbsp of butter in a pan.
Add the pasta roses and toss gently to coat. Cook for an additional minute.
Making the sauce
Saute the shallot and garlic with olive oil over medium heat until soft and fragrant.
Place in a blender with the peas, tarragon, and chicken stock. Blend until smooth.
Press through a fine mesh sieve.
Place in a pan, add the creme, and bring to a simmer.
Season with salt and white pepper.
To Plate
Ladle a pool of the pea sauce in the bottom of the dish.
Place 3 of the pasta roses on top.
Freshly grate a bit of cheese over the dish.
Garnish with arugula sprouts and dried rose petals.
Notes
You can adjust the amount of beet puree to adjust the color. By using 4 tbsp of the beet puree (which was less than 1 beet), I had a rich deep red pasta dough. This will bleach out a bit when you cook it. If you want something in a more delicate shade of pink, use less beet puree.
I found that the filling was too stiff for my pastry bag, so I thinned it with a bit of heavy cream and water.
My garnishes, the arugula sprouts and dried rose petals, began as visuals, but the spice of the arugula sprouts, which are peppery, and the fragrance of the dried rose petals played beautifully with the dish and the rich rosé wine that we paired with this dish.
Nutrition Information
Yield
24Serving Size
3Amount Per Serving Calories 186Total Fat 12gSaturated Fat 5gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 6gCholesterol 36mgSodium 126mgCarbohydrates 13gFiber 2gSugar 2gProtein 6g
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
More on Rosé & Tablas Creek Vineyard from Crushed Grape Chronicles
Discover Costaripa – Tradition to revolution, more than rosé this IS Valtenèsi
Under the radar, Italian Rosé to indulge in before Summer’s end
A Loire rosé, a Bordeaux from Pommerol and…..cheese #winophiles
Regenerative Agriculture at Tablas Creek – a meaningful way to farm #WinePW
Robin Renken is a wine writer and Certified Specialist of Wine and WSET 3 Certified. She and her husband Michael travel to wine regions interviewing vineyard owners and winemakers and learning the stories behind the glass.
When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.
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