Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Cream
This is a recipe I found about a month ago in the advertising supplement we sometimes get on Sunday mornings. We first tried it this past Saturday night in preparation for company on Monday. What I'm presenting here includes the changes we made between the first attempt and the second attempt, and also some comments on parts of it.
Ingredients:
- 1 24-ounce package frozen cheese ravioli. We favor the large round cheese ravioli from the Rosetto's brand, but for our first attempt we used two cups of regular dry pasta (mostly rotini).
- 1 cup roasted red pepper strips, drained and chopped. The recipe says this is about half a 16-ounce jar, work accordingly. We were able to find a jar of roasted red pepper for a dollar at a local place called "Deals $5 and Under", but I'm guessing you can get them at pretty much anywhere without paying too much of a premium.
- 3/4 cup white wine. We used just regular cooking wine, nothing special, because we basically know nothing about wine. Our two experiments suggest that 3/4 might be a little much - might try 1/2 or 2/3 next time.
- 1.25 cups heavy whipping cream. The recipe calls for 3/4, which made only barely enough for our two cups of dry pasta, and we like some extra sauce to mop up.
- 3/4 cup grated cheese. The recipe calls for grated Parmesan; we used a self-shredded block of pecorino Romano. Ran into a few problems with that but nothing noticeable in the end.
- Black pepper to taste. This was something we added in cooking on our own, and wasn't in the original recipe.
- 1 large chicken breast, cooked and cubed, totally optional and really only worth considering if you're using normal dry pasta and not something with flavor/texture/substance of its own.
Directions:
- Cook ravioli, or whatever you're using. Depending how long the package suggests cooking it, you might actually want to save this until the last stages of the sauce. The cheese in the ravioli we use is nice and runny when they're really hot, and they lost a lot of that when I set them aside to cool while finishing the sauce. Well, anyway, at least get the water boiling.
- Combine the chopped red peppers and the wine in a saucepan. Even a pretty small one will work pretty well. Turn the heat up on that sucker and boil away most of the wine. The recipe says "until 2 tablespoons remain." I don't know how the hell you're supposed to tell. So just, I don't know, "when the wine gets super low and doesn't cover most of the peppers." You do want most of it gone or the sauce will be too runny, but too little and there'll be nothing with red pepper flavor to blend with the cream. The recipe says this should take about five minutes, but apparently time works differently in their world, so, yeah, just watch the wine. Your kitchen will now smell like booze.
- When you're happy with the wine level, add the cream. 3/4 of a cup was not enough, so I tried 1 and 1/4. Might've been a little much, but I Like Sauce. Boil this mixture. Recipe says to "reduce heat to medium and simmer 3 to 5 minutes until slightly thick", all of which is pretty much a laugh. Stir frequently and check the thickness and don't let it boil over. "Slightly thick" apparently means "still pretty runny", so just get it to where you're happy. Here is where you add the black pepper, if you're using it.
- Add the cheese and stir it in. This is where we had a problem - it liked to glump at the bottom of the pan. Also the recipe suggests removing it from heat entirely at this point, and maybe that works if by "grated Parmesan" they just mean the plastic container in your fridge with the green label and questionably authentic cheese, but with our grated Romano it worked better just to reduce heat to medium-low, leave it on the burner, and stir it in a little at a time. Still had some glumping and stringiness, but by the time we ate it, it wasn't apparent.
- I don't know when you would add the chicken, since we haven't tried that yet, but you're smart, work it out on your own when you think would be best.
- Spoon sauce over pasta. The first time we served up the pasta and then added the sauce; the second time, with the ravioli, I poured the pot of sauce over the bowl of ravioli and let everyone fight it out.
- Eat.
- Article claims that this takes "20 minutes" and serves "4". I'd amend that to 30-35 minutes, and I guess "4" is supposed to mean two adults and two children, none of whom like pasta as much as I do, and who have a number of side dishes with it. On Monday afternoon, with a side of my Awesome Cheese Bread, it stuffed three adults to capacity, with no leftovers.
Comments, questions, complaints?
Ingredients:
- 1 24-ounce package frozen cheese ravioli. We favor the large round cheese ravioli from the Rosetto's brand, but for our first attempt we used two cups of regular dry pasta (mostly rotini).
- 1 cup roasted red pepper strips, drained and chopped. The recipe says this is about half a 16-ounce jar, work accordingly. We were able to find a jar of roasted red pepper for a dollar at a local place called "Deals $5 and Under", but I'm guessing you can get them at pretty much anywhere without paying too much of a premium.
- 3/4 cup white wine. We used just regular cooking wine, nothing special, because we basically know nothing about wine. Our two experiments suggest that 3/4 might be a little much - might try 1/2 or 2/3 next time.
- 1.25 cups heavy whipping cream. The recipe calls for 3/4, which made only barely enough for our two cups of dry pasta, and we like some extra sauce to mop up.
- 3/4 cup grated cheese. The recipe calls for grated Parmesan; we used a self-shredded block of pecorino Romano. Ran into a few problems with that but nothing noticeable in the end.
- Black pepper to taste. This was something we added in cooking on our own, and wasn't in the original recipe.
- 1 large chicken breast, cooked and cubed, totally optional and really only worth considering if you're using normal dry pasta and not something with flavor/texture/substance of its own.
Directions:
- Cook ravioli, or whatever you're using. Depending how long the package suggests cooking it, you might actually want to save this until the last stages of the sauce. The cheese in the ravioli we use is nice and runny when they're really hot, and they lost a lot of that when I set them aside to cool while finishing the sauce. Well, anyway, at least get the water boiling.
- Combine the chopped red peppers and the wine in a saucepan. Even a pretty small one will work pretty well. Turn the heat up on that sucker and boil away most of the wine. The recipe says "until 2 tablespoons remain." I don't know how the hell you're supposed to tell. So just, I don't know, "when the wine gets super low and doesn't cover most of the peppers." You do want most of it gone or the sauce will be too runny, but too little and there'll be nothing with red pepper flavor to blend with the cream. The recipe says this should take about five minutes, but apparently time works differently in their world, so, yeah, just watch the wine. Your kitchen will now smell like booze.
- When you're happy with the wine level, add the cream. 3/4 of a cup was not enough, so I tried 1 and 1/4. Might've been a little much, but I Like Sauce. Boil this mixture. Recipe says to "reduce heat to medium and simmer 3 to 5 minutes until slightly thick", all of which is pretty much a laugh. Stir frequently and check the thickness and don't let it boil over. "Slightly thick" apparently means "still pretty runny", so just get it to where you're happy. Here is where you add the black pepper, if you're using it.
- Add the cheese and stir it in. This is where we had a problem - it liked to glump at the bottom of the pan. Also the recipe suggests removing it from heat entirely at this point, and maybe that works if by "grated Parmesan" they just mean the plastic container in your fridge with the green label and questionably authentic cheese, but with our grated Romano it worked better just to reduce heat to medium-low, leave it on the burner, and stir it in a little at a time. Still had some glumping and stringiness, but by the time we ate it, it wasn't apparent.
- I don't know when you would add the chicken, since we haven't tried that yet, but you're smart, work it out on your own when you think would be best.
- Spoon sauce over pasta. The first time we served up the pasta and then added the sauce; the second time, with the ravioli, I poured the pot of sauce over the bowl of ravioli and let everyone fight it out.
- Eat.
- Article claims that this takes "20 minutes" and serves "4". I'd amend that to 30-35 minutes, and I guess "4" is supposed to mean two adults and two children, none of whom like pasta as much as I do, and who have a number of side dishes with it. On Monday afternoon, with a side of my Awesome Cheese Bread, it stuffed three adults to capacity, with no leftovers.
Comments, questions, complaints?