- [Instructor] My partner
inspires me every day and appreciates everything
that makes me me. And what better way to
celebrate our romance than with this spirit from a wild remote Island
off the coast of Scotland. Thanks to today's sponsor, Jess and I are enjoying
the botanist islay dry gin with a trio of martinis, dry, dirty, and one with the sweet twist. These botanist martinis will perfectly complete our date night meal. Let's get down to saying, I love you with great
food and great cocktails. Let's get down to the basics. (upbeat music) All right, for this Date Night, we're going to make canopies,
a pasta, and a dessert, and I'm gonna show you how to make three different kinds of each. This way you can pick
whichever one you like. You can mix and match,
or you can make all three for a sort of tasting menu. And for the easiest and
breeziest possible night of cooking together, we're gonna start with what
you can do ahead of time. First up, a decadent
flowerless chocolate cake. I'm gonna start with some arts and crafts lining for six ounce ramekins with parchment paper on
the bottom and sides. To line the bottom, I am folding
a square of parchment paper into a triangle pressing
the tip of the triangle into the center of the ramekin and using my freshly clipped
fingernails to press a crease around the inside edge of the cup. This is going to act as a cutting guide. And if we cut right around that edge, it's going to give us
a perfect little circle of parchment paper custom
designed for our ramekins. Then the line to the sides, we're cutting a strip of parchment paper at the same height as the
sides of our ramekins, pressing it inside and
cutting out the overlap. This recipe is for four cakes. So if my math is correct, I'm gonna repeat this three more times, then once we got all
of our pieces cut out, we're gonna generously
grease both the ramekins and the paper with non-stick spray. This is going to help
adhere the paper tightly to the inside of the cups. With those guys all prepped, we're ready to start making our butter. First, we need six ounces
of the high quality, dark chocolate of your choice. I like to shoot for about 60%. Then to make sure that it melts easily, we're going to chop it
fine and set it aside. And then heat proved
bowl along with one ounce of Dutch-process cocoa powder, a half teaspoon each,
instant espresso powder, and kosher salt, and
four and a half ounces of unsalted room temperature butter. Mix that up into a paste and set aside and over on the stove top, we're combining three ounces of sugar with a third of a cup of
water, bringing to a simmer, making sure that all
the sugar's dissolved, taking off the heat and pouring directly over our chocolate mixture. Then we're gonna wanna let this sit for 30 seconds of just 30
seconds, okay, I'll wait. This is gonna give the
chocolate and butter a chance to soften and heat up so
that when we may begin to tiny whisk it quickly
emulsifies into a thick, creamy ganache. This is going to act as the chocolate part of our flowerless chocolate cake. Now we've got to make the cake part. Into the bowl of a stand mixer goes three room temperature eggs and one and a half ounces of sugar. Then I'm gonna beat this
on medium high speed for about three minutes
until it has nearly tripled in volume and reaches the ribbon stage where the mixture luxuriously
drifts off the whisk like ribbons. Now we're just gonna add our
chocolate ganache mixture to the party folding
together until homogenous. You don't have to be too gentle with it. This isn't like egg whites, you're not gonna deflate it too much. Once that's evenly combined
and your wrist hurts, we're going to divide it evenly amongst our pre-paper ramekins. You might notice that
I only have three here and that's because I thought this would only make three cakes. It turns out it makes four. That's why I'm here
folks to mess up the math so you don't have to. Next up, we're placing these
in a high waltz casserole or cake pan and filling that
pan about three quarters of the way up the sides of
the ramekins with cool water. Then they are headed into a
300 degree Fahrenheit oven for anywhere from 60 to 70
minutes until they are puffed and relatively set but ever so
slightly jiggly when jiggled. Pop them out of the bath, place them on a wire rack to cool, and once completely cooled,
they can be wrapped and fridged for at least four hours
and up to three days. Now, I mentioned that we're
doing three different variations of each course in this meal. So for the cakes, we're gonna look at a few
different kinds of sauces. First up, one of my favorites,
a simple creme on glaze. We're combining five ounces
each, milk and heavy cream on the stove top with a
half teaspoon of kosher salt and bringing to a bare simmer. While that begins to bubble and we're gonna scrape
one large vanilla pod, and in a medium heat proof bowl, we are separating three,
wrong bowl, there we go. Egg whites go there. We're separating out
three large egg yolks. And we're whisking those yolks together with three tablespoons of sugar, adding our vanilla bean scrapings and whisking until smooth and creamy. Then a creme anglaise is
pretty much just like a custard that isn't cooked as much. So we're bringing over
our barely simmering cream and milk mixture and gently
labeling about half of it into the eggs while whisking constantly. Then we are whisking the
tempered eggs back into the milk and cream and cooking over medium low heat while whisking constantly until it reaches about
180 degrees Fahrenheit. This should be the point where
the mixture stops foaming and it reaches a stage known as nappe, where it can thickly
coat the back of a spoon and leave a clean trail
when wiped with a finger. At this point, we're
gonna take it off the heat and whisk in about a tablespoon of butter. Once that's fully incorporated,
it's time to strain the sky, let it cool to room
temperature and fridge it, pressing a layer of plastic wrap down against the surface of the custard to prevent it from forming a skin. Our next option for sauces
is a simple raspberry coulis. We've got a half pint
of rinsed raspberries, a half a cup of sugar,
a tablespoon of water, combined in a sauce pan, mashed up, brought to a simmer, and cooked for about five to six minutes until it's a nice thin liquidy
sort of raspberry pre-jam. And we're gonna strain this, optionally add a tablespoon
of orange lacunar, let it cool in the room temperature and likewise, cover and
fridge until ready to use. Last up, one that I'm
particularly excited about, a bourbon caramel sauce. Into a medium saucepan goes
a tablespoon like corn syrup, a third of a cup of water
and one cup of sugar that we're gonna bring to a
boil over medium high heat. We're gonna let this cook for anywhere from three to five minutes
until it develops a deep amber, one might even say caramel color. At this point, we're killing the heat and slowly adding a half
a cup of room temperature heavy cream whisking constantly. It will bubble and
sputter something fierce, so make sure that you wear an off glove. Once that's all calm down, we can add a hefty pinch of kosher salt. It is illegal not to salt your caramel and a third of a cup of
high quality bourbon. Let this cool off and
like the other sauces, cover and refrigerate until
you're ready to use it. And just like that, we've
got dessert done and dusted. So now it's time to take
a look at some canopies. First up my personal favorite, a roasted eggplant
spread known as caponata. Once we're done playing with it, we're going to slice one large eggplant into one inch slaps
which we're gonna place on a paper towel lined baking sheet and generously sprinkle on
both sides with kosher salt. We're letting those
rest at room temperature for about 20 minutes which is going to make
them weep a bitter liquid, which of course, we're gonna dab off with more paper towels. This is a great practice for almost any eggplant application. In our case, we're plopping
them on a rim baking sheet, tossing them with a
little bit of olive oil, hitting with a few twists of
freshly cracked black pepper, tossing around to ensure even coating and roasting at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes,
flipping once halfway through until they are lightly
browned and completely tender. While those cool off, we're
headed over to the stove top where we're heating about
two tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat until shimmering, adding one small chopped onion and sweating for about three minutes. Once the onion is softened and
translucent around the edges, we're adding one clove of minced garlic, satang about 30 seconds or until fragrant and adding one red bell pepper
and two medium tomatoes, both seated and diced. We're also adding one tablespoon of sugar, two tablespoons of minced green olive, one tablespoon of capers, holding onto the cup if we can manage. And once it's cool enough to handle, our roasted eggplant
chopped into one inch cubes. Now we're gonna slowly stew
this whole affair together for about 30 minutes until
everybody's super tender and sweet and delicious. Add little splashes of water as necessary if it gets too dry, season
to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, let it cool and fridge
until ready to serve. Whether you go hot or cold, this is gonna make a lovely topping for our crostini down the line. Next up, a Tuscan white bean dip. We're satang a small shallot
and about a tablespoon of olive oil until soften
about three minutes, adding a half teaspoon of
thyme, a teaspoon of sage, and two crushed cloves of garlic satang for another 30 seconds or until fragrant, then we're adding one can have rinsed and drained white cannellini beans killing the heat and just tossing to coat. Next up, the zest of one small lemon, a pinch of kosher salt and a few twists of freshly
ground black pepper. Then this guy's headed straight
into the food processor along with an eighth of a
teaspoon of cayenne pepper and the juice of our apple
mentioned zested lemon. Go ahead and start to blitz that, and while the machine is running, we're gonna stream in one quarter cup of extra Virgin olive oil
down the opening shoot thing, keep processing until the
mixture is completely smooth. Taste for seasoning. Then this guy's headed for the fridge until we're ready to use it. Now for the main course,
I'm gonna show you how to make a few different
kinds of filled pasta. And for that, we need pasta dough. And I've recently come
across the easiest way in the world to make it
in the food processor. Instead of food processor, where you're combining a 7.5 ounces of all-purpose flour, one
teaspoon of kosher salt and five ounces of eggs. We are then locking down and smashing go and letting it process for 60 seconds. Much like with food
process or pizza dough, this is going to create
beautiful gluten development and accomplish what it would
take us like 10 minutes to do by hand. In the end, you should be met
with a smooth elastic dough that bounces back when poked, give it a little hand
kneading just to show it that you care rapid and
plastic wrap and frigid until ready to use up to overnight. Now I'm gonna show you how
to make three different kinds of pasta fillings with three
different accompanying sauces. Let's start with a
butternut squash ravioli with brown butter sage sauce. For the filling, we're gonna start with two cups of pre-peeled
and cubed butternut squash, three cloves of garlic
peeled and roughly chopped, one small shallot peeled and cut in half, three leaves of fresh sage chopped, two springs worth of
fresh picked thyme leaves, one tablespoon of extra Virgin olive oil, a teaspoon of kosher salt
and freshly ground pepper, and a tablespoon of maple
syrup to accompany the butter and squashes natural sweetness. Toss everybody together to coat evenly, dump into a rimmed baking sheet, cover tightly with aluminum foil and poke a couple of holes in
there to help steam escape. Then we were roasting this
guy at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 to 40 minutes until the
squash is completely tender and shows little to no resistance when stabbed with a pairing knife. We're letting this guy cool completely before dumping into a food processor along with two ounces of marscapone cheese and one teaspoon of white wine vinegar. Processed together for about 60 seconds or until completely smooth
and seasoned to taste with kosher salt and
freshly ground pepper. And just like that, your
butternut squash filling is ready to fridge. It's a company new sauce,
a brown butter sage sauce. It doesn't really require any preparation, but it can save you a little bit of time if you brown your butter beforehand. I've got eight ounces of
unsalted butter that I'm cooking and swirling constantly over medium heat until the milk solids separate
and turn a toasty brown. If you've fridge this and then let it come to room
temperature before preparation, you can mix it up and makes sure all the
nice brown toasty bits are evenly distributed throughout. Next up for all you cheese
enthusiasts out there, we've got ourselves a
four cheese tortelloni with a bright and spicy vodka sauce. In a medium bowl, we are
combining six ounces of ricotta, two ounces of grated Parmesan, two ounces of grated asiago, and four ounces of grated low
moisture, full fat mozzarella. Mostly, you're gonna add a
quarter teaspoon dried oregano, two or three leaves of
fresh basil finely chopped, one large beaten egg and
something that always goes well and cheesy creamy Italian stuff. About a quarter teaspoon
of freshly grated nutmeg. We're also gonna add one
teaspoon each kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. We wanna try to season as many layers of our dishes as possible. Mix that up into a homogenous paste and then it can hang out in the fridge until we're ready to fill our pasta. Likewise, it's accompanying the sauce, it's very quick and easy, but
two can be made ahead of time. We're satang one small chopped onion and a tablespoon and a half of olive oil for about three minutes
until soft and translucent, adding one clove of minced garlic, and between a quarter to a full
teaspoon of red pepper flake depending on how spicy you like it. Satang those together for about 30 seconds before adding a full six
ounce can of tomato paste, cook that for about two minutes
until it's nice and toasty and it's starting to stick
to the bottom of the pan, kill the heat and deglaze with about a third of a cup of vodka. Make sure the flame is off, or
you might lose your eyebrows. Once that is mostly evaporated, we're turning the heat back on the medium, adding a half teaspoon of dried oregano and cooking for about two minutes, just enough time to make sure that we've evaporated off all the alcohol. Then we're cranking the heat down to low and slowly and in stages,
adding three quarters of a cup of heavy cream
at room temperature. This is gonna help prevent
the crane from curling. Once it's fully incorporated, we're turning off the heat seasoning taste with salt and freshly ground pepper, and once cooled, this guy can
be fridged with plastic graph pressed down against a surface to prevent the formation of skin. Last up, a sausage and cheese tortelloni with a broccoli rabe pasta. To make the filling, we add a brown, about eight ounces worth
of spicy Italian sausage in a little bit of oil, mashing it up into
tiny, tiny little pieces resorting to using a
potato masher, if you must. We just wanna get a little bit of branding and make sure that the
sausage is cooked through before draining on paper towels to get rid of all the excess fat. While the sausage cools off and drains, we're going to make a sausage
cheese delivery system. Combining five ounces of ricotta, one ounce of grated Parmesan,
and our cooled sausage. And in addition to some
freshly ground black pepper, we need something to
bind everything together, that thing being one large beaten egg. This should help give our tortelloni a nice cohesive filling. Once you get that all nice and mixed up and well combined and homogenous and all the other words that
I use on a regular basis, this like everybody else
is ready for the fridge. Broccoli rabe and Italian sausage
are a tale as old as time. So we're making a broccoli rabe pasta to accompany this pasta. We're gonna need roughly
eight stocks of broccoli rabe that we're gonna remove
all the leaves from, one about a quarter pound once de leaved. Then we are briefly
blanching our broccoli. Just one to two minutes and
lightly salted boiling water is going to protect the
broccoli rabes flavor and color in the pasta making process. We're shocking our rabe in an ice bath and squeezing completely dry
using a clean kitchen towel. The more moisture you get out of there, the better you don't want a watery pasta and replacing our drain BR in
the bowl of a food processor, along with a quarter cup of
toasted and cooled walnuts, two large cloves of
garlic roughly chopped, one copious grading about
a half a cup's worth of Parmesan cheese, a
generous pinch of salt, a few twists of freshly
ground black pepper, and six tablespoons of
extra Virgin olive oil. Process this into a fine paste and pasta, you got pasta, I am sorry. And like basil pasta, this
will not discolor in the fridge and it can hang out until
we're ready to use it. This concludes the pre-preface
segment of the episode. Now we're getting into
the element new stuff that we got to do at dinner time. First up, we got to make some
crostini for our sprints. We're doing this simply by thinly slicing a
baguette on the diagonal. Arranging them on a rack,
set in a rim baking sheet, brushing them down a
little bit of olive oil and sprinkling with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Then these guys are headed into
a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about five minutes
until they're lightly brown, crisp around the edges
and they are crostini. There you go. And once cool, they are ready to receive
our various toppings. For the white bean dip, we're just gonna load up
a dollop on each crostini and both for flavor. And so they don't look so plain,
we're going to garnish them with some chives sliced on the diagonal. I'm not a huge beam guy myself, but these guys are a delicious, elegant, and simple prelude to any Italian dinner. Next up, likewise, with the caponata, we're just gonna pile it
high on each crostini. This time garnishing with
some finally Julianne Bazell and there you have it,
a caponata crostini. And as for the third one, it
requires no pre-preparation. And it's one of my favorite
things in the world. This crostini is just a
dollop of ricotta cheese topped with a single marcona almond or a hazelnut and drizzled with honey. I've made these for
numerous dinner parties and they are always the ones that disappear the most fastest. And they're the only one that I can't help but stick preview before serving. Now, we get to the
tricky part, rolling out, filling and shaping our pasta. This of course can be done by hand, but it requires a significant
amount of elbow grease and nobody wants to be exhausted for their Date Night dinner. So I'm going to employ a pasta roller. And I got to say this food processor pasta came out gorgeously. Normally, I recommend
laminating pasta dough a couple of times that is rolling it out, folding it up and rolling it out again. But the food processor
developed such great gluten that there was no need to do it. You just roll and go on. And once cooked, the
pasta comes out perfectly tooth some Al Dente. Now this episode, it's getting pretty long and I've already exhaustedly
covered how to roll out and shape filled pasta. If you wanna see my
video and how to do it, click the link in the upper
right hand corner right now. But if I should say,
we're forming the ravioli by placing dollops of
our filling spaced out across the bottom half
of the sheet of pasta, sealing it shut using a wetted fingertip and cutting it into decorative shapes. For the tortelloni, we're
cutting the pasta into squares, piping our filling into the center, letting two edges of the square
with water using our finger, folding in half and pressing
tight so no filling seeps out, then joining the two corners together around our finger to form tortelloni. For the tortelloni it's
a very similar affair, but this time we're cutting
the dough into rounds. Piping our sausage
filling into the center, wedding on one side, pressing shut and
stretching the two corners around the back to form tortelloni. Like I said, I'm not gonna go much into the technique here
because my real hot tip for making pasta is that on Date Night, it's a great time to recruit
your significant other. All the prep is done and out of the way. It ends up taking half as long and you feel like you're doing
arts and crafts together. It's fun. So go ahead and grab an
apron for your loved one. Pull up my other video again,
upper right-hand corner, click the link, get your
hair out of your face, and get down to making pasta together. Even with a camera crew present, it ends up being a sweet,
silly, and romantic experience. Then once you got your
pasta done and dusted, all there is left to do is
cook, sauce, and garnish. First up, to make the
tortelloni out of vodka, I'm going to fry up some
thin slices of Pancetta and a little bit of vegetable
oil for about five minutes or until they've rendered out their fat and they're nice and crisp, set those aside, hang on to that oil and get some water boiling so you can start cooking your pasta. We're gonna add our first sauce to the oil over medium low heat just to heat it up a little bit. Let our four cheese tortelloni
cook no more than 60 seconds until it starts to float
and dump it straight out into the waiting pasta
sauce, tossing to coat and continuing to cook
over medium, low heat so the flavors can get to know each other. If the sauce starts to break, go ahead and add a glug
of pasta cooking water and it will re-emulsify. Stack it high and a warm plate
and get ready to garnish. The procedure is very much the same for the sausage tortelloni
and broccoli rabe pasta. We're lightly heating
up the sauce in a pan as we cook the pasta and
marrying the two together once the tortelloni begins to float. For this one, you're
definitely gonna wanna add a solid quarter cup
of pasta cooking water to give you an extra
creamy emulsified sauce. Don't be afraid to add more as necessary, keep tossing it around and
finish with the grating of fresh Parmesan for
Parmesan bonus points. For a butternut squash ravioli
and brown butter sauce, we're heating up our pre-brown butter until foaming or just browning butter if you didn't pre-brown and
adding two large crushed cloves of garlic and a few fresh sage leaves. We're gonna let these fry up for just about 30 seconds
while our pasta cooks. We don't want anybody to burn. And as soon as the garlic is lightly brown and the sage is wilted, go ahead
and add the cooked ravioli. This one, likewise is gonna
need a generous amount of pasta cooking water. Otherwise, you're gonna end
up with a greasy oily mess. This along with little
grading of Parmesan cheese is going to make it into
a creamy, luxurious sauce. If it starts to break or if
it starts to look greasy, take it off the heat
and give it more water. And there you have it folks,
three different possibilities for three different Date Night dishes. Sausage and cheese tortelloni
with broccoli rabe pasta, which I'm gonna garnish with more cheese and some chops sun dried tomatoes. For cheese tortelloni with
a spicy creamy vodka sauce and crispy pancetta,
brown butternut squash, ravioli with fried sage and garlic, and Caponata Tuscan white bean and ricotta with honey canopies. And so whether you've
made one of these dishes or all nine of them, all there is left to do is
share them with your someone. They're all made from scratch. They can all be made
largely ahead of time. They are all made with love, and they are all clean
plate club inductees. Look, she even has her own
fork shake of approval. What could possibly make this
date night meal any better? Well, I think three
different excellent martinis from today's sponsor, the botanist gin. First up, for our Valentine's
day pomegranate martini, we're gonna need some
freshly harvested thyme. You can also harvest from your fridge, perhaps a sultry look to set the mood. One heaping tablespoon
of pomegranate Errol's. Those are the little seed
pods of the pomegranate which we're gonna muddle together with two and a half parts
of the botanist gin. This is going to infuse them with both their pomegranate flavor and their pomegranate color. We'll let that hang out for two hours before straining and pouring over ice in our preferred mixing glass, along with half a part of dry vermouth, go ahead and mix that vigorously until the glass has become frosty and it is diluted to your preference, strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass and garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme. But just like everything else today, we're doing three variations. Deep for the more classic dry martini, well, it's the same recipe,
but without infusing the gin. And instead of the fresh thyme, we're gonna garnish this guy with an elegant wedge of lemon peel. Do you prefer things a bit dirtier? Well, for a dirty martini, again, two and a half
parts of the botanist gin, but this time we're adding a
quarter part of olive brine in addition to our half
part of driver move. Mix until chilled and diluted, pour into a chilled Nick and Nora glass and garnish with three stuffed olives. And there you have it three
different kinds of martinis to accompany your three different
kinds of everything else. Oh, and the cakes, I almost
totally forgot about the cakes. Run a thin knife around the
outside of the parchment. And these guys should pop
right out of the ramekins. Lose the parchment paper
from the sides and bottom and sauce up as desired with pipes or pools or big dripping dollops. These guys also respond very nicely to a big dollop of whipped cream. Whether you like your martinis dry, dirty, or with a different twist, the button just brings out the best in this classic cocktail. Already delicious on its own, a botanist martini pairs perfectly with this three-course meal
and your special someone. Mixed one up this
Valentine's day or whenever, order a bottle of the botanist
for home delivery on Drizly. The link is in the video
description, cheers. (gentle music)
"Freshly clipped fingernails" lol
Anybody else bothered by the colour grading on the handheld shots? The tomato/vodka sauce particularly bothered me - it looked red in the wide shots, and then brown in the close-ups.
Andrew and Jess horsing around at the end is absolutely adorable!
100% thought our boy Babish was going to pop the question at the end.
Making some martinis also a good shout though.
I gotta say, Jess has wonderful on-camera energy. It's not at all obvious to have such a supporting partner to a successful youtuber, and I imagine it can be very stressful, so from me and the rest of the BwB audience - thank you, Jess!
20 minute episode? Babish sparing no expense!
Seeing Andrew and Jess being a happy playful couple is the best part of this episode. Literally couldn't stop smiling by how cute they are together.
Loved the wide variety of options (especially as a vegetarian)! Everything looked delicious.
This was the sweetest vid they've ever made!!!
If you really want to step up your game Romantic sushi for a date