Stuffed pasta is just plain magical! Any kind of stuffed pasta and you’ll find us trying it with an anticipation of one of the best flavor combinations ever! There are so many classic and progressive versions of stuffed pasta that we have made and tried, and we figured it was time to share one of our favorites with you: agnolotti del plin. And if you are already a fava bean lover or if you have ever wanted to try fava beans, this is an excellent way to use them. Oh, it is possible you will find them in a market by their other name, “broad beans.” Either way, this Fava Bean Agnolotti del Plin with Calabrian Chili Butter Sauce is your ticket to an amped-up flavor grenade that you’ll fall in love with.
What is Agnolotti del Plin
Agnolotti del Plin is a stuffed pasta that originated in northern Italy. Like ravioli, traditional agnolotti is made with pasta sheets folded over a filling. The agnolotti shape is made by folding the sheet over the filling to make small squares. Agnolotti del Plin is often smaller and rectangular shaped, and is made by folding the pasta sheet over the filling and pinching the dough to seal it making small pillows. The word plin refers to the pinch sealing method. Cutting the agnolotti where it was pinched (see video below) with a ravioli cutter results in folds that capture sauce nicely.
Shaping the agnolotti del plin may seem daunting, but it’s actually one of the easiest to make in our opinion. It is challenging to explain in words alone how to shape these, so we recorded the shaping video for reference and ease. For the dough, we use our Multipurpose Pasta Dough recipe and roll it out to a 6 (6th thinnest setting on our Kitchenaid Pasta Attachment roller).
The traditional filling for agnolotti is meat, often braised with other herbs or vegetables. But you can find this pasta shape with a variety of different fillings throughout Italy, especially in modern Italian cooking. We chose the fava bean filling here because we love fava beans and we wanted to keep this version vegetarian.
The Fava Bean and Herb Filling
Fava beans are extremely tasty and pair well with herbs. But they can be overpowered if you get too aggressive with the auxiliary flavors.
We feel that this ratio is perfect and really lets the many flavors blend in harmonious fashion. Since mint and dill are great co-workers with fava beans, so we tried them each alone in the fava bean puree. Although they both tasted nice, it was hard to decide which was better. Next, we tried adding them both and, BAM, that was the answer.
The rest of the filling was about texture and rounding out the main characters in the filling.
Calabrian Chili Butter Sauce
But now we come to the sauce. This isn’t anything crazy and it is very easy to make. Essentially, you are making a beurre blanc and adding lemon and Calabrian chili paste to it. The chili paste addition is very purposeful here. A little bit of bitter spiciness balances the inherent sweetness in the agnolotti filling and the acid in the lemon.
The flavor combination here is quite stunning, especially with the agnolotti!
Enjoy!
We hope you enjoy this recipe for Fava Bean Agnolotti del Plin with Calabrian Chili Butter Sauce! If you give it a try, leave us a comment below or tag us on Instagram @cooking_with_wine!
Looking for more recipes like this? Check these out:
- Coriander Ricotta Tortellini in Saffron Broth
- Lobster Ravioli with Lemon Cream Sauce
- Pumpkin Ravioli with Parmesan Sage Cream Sauce
- Seared Scallop Pasta with Vanilla Grapefruit Cream Sauce
- Baked Rigatoni with Tomato Herb Meat Sauce
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Fava Bean Agnolotti del Plin with Calabrian Chili Butter Sauce
Course: DinnerCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Medium4
servings1
hour20
minutes1
hour20
minutesIngredients
- For the Pasta
1 Recipe Multipurpose Pasta Dough – rolled to the 6th thinnest setting on the roller (rather thin)
- For the Filling
1.25 lbs whole fresh fava (broad) beans
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
1 small shallot – minced
¾ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp black pepper
2 tsp chopped mint
2 tsp chopped dill
¼ cup crème fraiche
¼ cup grated Parmesan
- For the Sauce
2 tsp olive oil
1 small shallot – minced
5 black peppercorns
1 Tbsp lemon zest
½ cup dry white wine
6 Tbsp butter
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp Calabrian chili paste
Directions
- Make the Pasta dough
- Follow the instructions to make one recipe of Multipurpose Pasta Dough linked here. While the pasta dough is resting in the fridge, make the filling.
- Fava Bean Filling
- Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and prepare a bowl with ice water to shock the beans.
- Remove the beans from their hulls. You should have about a cup of beans after hulled. Blanch the beans by adding them to the boiling water for just a minute and remove them to the ice bath.
- When the beans are cool, remove the outer film that surrounds each bean and discard. You should have about ¾ cup of fava beans that are ready to use at this stage.
- Heat a sauté pan or skillet on medium heat and add the butter and olive oil. Once the butter has melted, add the shallot, fava beans, salt, and pepper. Cook for a few minutes to soften the fava beans and the shallot. Remove the entire mixture to a bowl to cool.
- Once cooled, add this mixture to a blender with the mint, dill, crème fraiche, and Parmesan cheese. Thoroughly blend the mixture into a puree. Taste for seasoning. The mixture should be thick, but can be thinned out if it is too thick with a little bit of cream if needed. Transfer the filling to a piping bag and set aside at room temp while you prepare your pasta sheets.
- Roll out the Dough and Shape the Agnolotti del Plin
- Remove the dough from the fridge and knead for a few minutes to soften. Cut the dough into 4 equal segments. Cover the segments in plastic wrap while you roll out your first pasta sheet.
- Press the first piece on a flat surface with your hands to flatten it to about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. Run it through a pasta roller starting with the widest setting.
- Fold and run through on the widest setting a total of 3 times. If it gets too wide you can fold the sides in to make it thinner. If it rips or tears, simply fold it over and start again. Run it through the next setting 2 more times folding in between.
- Then run the sheet through once at the next lowest setting, and continue until desired thickness is achieved (we run through to the 6th thinnest setting for agnolotti del plin). We recommend filling and shaping one sheet at a time to avoid drying out the dough.
- Shape the Agnolotti del Plin (see video for reference)
- Lay your pasta sheet flat on a lightly floured surface. Pipe your filling about 1.5 inches from the long edge down the length of the sheet.
- Next, fold the sheet over the filling overlapping the dough about 1 inch on the other side of the filling. Press the two sides of the dough together tightly against the filling, starting in the center of the dough sheet to seal the filling inside.
- Starting at one end, use your thumb and pointer finger on each hand to pinch the dough and make small pillows of filling. Continue down the entire sheet of pasta.
- Using your ravioli cutter, or a knife, cut the excess sheet of pasta away from the pillows. Cut close enough so that you don’t have a lot of excess dough on one side, but not too close to expose the filling.
- Next use your ravioli cutter to cut each pillow away from the rope by rolling it over the pinched part of the dough toward the overlapping sealed dough. This will create folds and seal each agnolotto. Repeat until all the agnolotti is shaped.
- You should be able to get two ropes of agnolotti per sheet of pasta folding in from both long edges over the filling.
- Make the Sauce
- Before starting the sauce, prepare a large pot of water over high heat for the pasta. Once boiling and add a small handful of kosher salt (the water should taste like the sea).
- Make your sauce by heating oil in small saucepan. Sauté the shallot on medium low heat for a couple of minutes to soften the shallot. Add the peppercorns, lemon zest, and wine and turn heat to medium. Cook until the wine is reduced by half and strain out the peppercorns, zest, and shallot. Return the liquid to the pan and continue to reduce until there is just a small amount of liquid – a few teaspoons.
- Remove from the heat and start to whisk in the butter, one tablespoon at a time. Once the butter has been incorporated, you should have a cohesive sauce (beurre blanc). Whisk in the lemon juice and pepper paste and taste for seasoning. Set aside while you make your pasta. You can warm it back up gently over low right before serving (or just serve over the hot pasta) but do not boil the sauce or it will break.
- Make the Agnolotti
- Once the sauce is done, add the agnolotti and cook until the pasta floats and is al-dente tender. This should take about 5-6 minutes. Remove to a serving bowl or individual bowls with a slotted spoon or spider. Coat with the sauce and serve with more lemon zest, Parmesan or whatever else you like for garnish!
Recipe Video
Notes
- The agnolotti del plin can be made in advance and refrigerated up to a day ahead, or frozen to enjoy at a later time within 3 months.
To freeze, place agnolotti on a sheet tray in a single layer in the freezer for 30 min. After 30 min, remove and place in a freezer safe air tight bag or container. When cooking pasta from frozen, remove straight from the freezer into the boiling salted water. They will take an additional 1-2 minutes to cook. - If you do not have a piping bag, you can alternatively place small scoops on your dough about 1 inch apart and pinch between each scoop to seal.
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