I created a recipe for the They Go Really Well Together blogging event, this time hosted over at Le Petite Boulanger. The challenge was to create a dish using chocolate and meat. The initial discussion on the host blog was about mole and chilli. Rather than making the chocolate in a sauce for the meat, I wanted to do a dish where the chocolate was the main component and the meat was the flavoring agent. My initial idea was to fill a molten cake with consomme jelly, but I decided that would be disgusting.

I remembered Eric Ripert’s recipe for chocolate ravioli that had interested me last Valentine’s Day, and thought this might be a nice path to follow. Additionally, I’ve been obsessed with braising and, as it’s grading season here at Penn State, have been drinking a lot of rum, so the rest of the ingredients sort of fell into place, magically.

One thing I will point out: this recipe tasted great. I did some research on the Internet and found out that raisins and rum also share a number of flavor chemicals with chocolate and beef, leading me to believe that their inclusion in the dish would be tasty. I feel that this actually was the case, as the whole thing paired really well. I thought the raisin emulsion was a little too sweet, but Shawna, who has a much more sweet favoring palate than I, thought it was spot-on. The pea emulsion didn’t add anything to the flavor, but the ravioli sort of look like shit, literally, and needed to be sauced to look edible. I thought the pea emulsion gave a nice color to the dish without impacting the flavor. Without further ado, here’s the recipe:

Raisin Emulsion Ingredients:
* 1c. Golden Raisins
* 1T honey
* 1T white wine vinegar
* xanthan gum

Pea Emulsion (from Hungry In Hog Town) Ingredients:
* 260g Frozen Peas
* 325g Water
* 5 mint leaves
* 3g xanthan gum

Braising Liquid Ingredients:
* 2c beef stock
* 1c Myer’s dark rum
* 1/8c balsamic vinegar
* 1/4t ground cinnamon
* 1/4t ground nutmeg
* dash ground cloves

Other Ingredients:
* 1lb. of bone-in beef spare ribs
* 1 medium onion, diced
* 2 garlic cloves, diced
* 1 recipe “Ripert’s Chocolate Ravioli dough”:http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/231566

Preparing the Raisin Emulsion (can be done while beef is braising or in advance):
# In a small saucepan, cover the raisins with water and heat until just before simmering. Remove from heat, cover with plastic wrap, and let stand for 30 minutes.
# Add water and raisins to blender. Blend until smooth.
# Strain contents of blender to remove raisin skin (I used a cheese cloth). Discard the skins and reserve the liquid.
# Return the liquid to the blender and add honey and vinegar. Blend to combine.
# Add xanthan gum in small amounts until the mixture has a thick consistency but is still a little runny (I used 3/4t xanthan, but it was too much. I had to cut it with some water, later).
# Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Preparing the Pea Emulsion (can be done while beef is braising or in advance):
# As with the original recipe, cook peas in a little bit of water (I used 1/4c) for 4 minutes (I brought to a boil over high and turned down, covered, to medium). Add the mint leaves for the last 5 seconds.
# Drain the mixture and shock in ice water.
# Add peas, mint, 325g water, and xanthan. Blend until smooth.
# Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Braising the Beef:
# Combine all the braising liquid ingredients in a bowl.
# Pat dry the short ribs. Lightly salt and pepper.
# Heat 1T olive oil over low heat in a pot big enough to hold the ribs and the braising liquid. Brown the ribs on each side. Remove from pot.
# Raise heat to medium and cook onion and garlic until soft in the fat and brown bits in the pot, around 5 minutes.
# Raise heat to medium-high. Add the braising liquid and beef to the pot. Salt and pepper the braising liquid, to taste. Bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer the beef for 1.5-2 hours (beef will fall off the bone easily when done).

Making the ravioli filling:
# When beef is done cooking, remove the ribs and bones from the liquid. Strain the braising liquid into another pot, reserving the separated onions and garlic and the liquid.
# Remove the bones from the beef (if they haven’t already fallen off). Remove the gristle that surrounded the bones from the beef. Coarsely chop the beef. Remove some but not all of the fat (this is not absolutely necessary, but preserving some of the beef fat will make for a smoother filling).
# Add the beef, onions, garlic, and 2t of the reserved braising liquid and puree. The mixture should have a light brown color and be relatively smooth and creamy.

Reducing the sauce:
# Boil the remaining braising liquid, skimming fat, until the mixture begins to thicken considerably, being careful to avoid burning. The mixture will be syrupy.
# Set aside until ready to serve.

Making the pasta dough:

Note: I did not make the pasta dough for this recipe. One of the advantages to having a talented pastry chef in-house is that one doesn’t have to worry about making such things. As this is the case, I can’t really summarize the process beyond the instruction to follow Ripert’s instructions, substituting the braised beef filling for his chocolate one. That said, Shawna has posted a rather lengthy account of the process over at her site. Keep in mind that the dough has to sit for 30 minutes.

Finishing:
# Boil a large pot of water. Add a pinch or two of salt, to taste.
# Boil the filled ravioli for 5 minutes (we boiled in a smaller stock pot and had to do it in two shifts).
# Meanwhile, re-heat all the sauces. I microwaved the emulsions for 3/4 minute and warmed the reduced braising liquid over a really low flame.
# Remove the ravioli, as they finish, with a slotted spoon.
# To plate, spread a disc of reduced braising liquid in the center of the plate. Arrange four ravioli in a row. Spread some pea emulsion along the length of the ravioli using a tea spoon. Drizzle with raisin emulsion (using a squirt bottle; if you want to apply the pea emulsion with a squirt bottle, as I originally did, you should strain the pea emulsion before adding the xanthan gum, as pea fragments will clog the nozzle of the bottle).

Overall, this recipe was a ton of work and didn’t yield a whole lot of food. The flavor combination was spot-on, though. One thing I will be using again, though, is the braising liquid. The beef was delicious and would have worked well on its own. The Myer’s dark rum really paired well with the beef and gave it an interesting flavor that was very different from usual wine-based braising liquids. I have to say I enjoyed the experience but wouldn’t want to work this hard on this dish again.