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Chicken and Rose Petal Ravioli with Rose Essence Bechemel

I was inspired during a trip to Israel to come up with this recipe. Rose petals are used fairly often in middle eastern cooking.

I was inspired during a trip to Israel to come up with this recipe. Rose petals are used fairly often in middle eastern cooking and it is often paired with chicken and other fowl. Once I returned to San Francisco I had a terrible time finding culinary dried rose buds. I eventually gave up and decided I would use a rose petal tea. My theory was to just pull the rose petals out of the tea until I had a couple of tablespoons worth and just toss out the leftover tea. Well, that didn't work at all. The tea and roses were all ground up together. After some experiementing and tasting I discovered that the tea is a perfectly acceptable spice to add right into the chicken. As weird as it might sound it's actually quite yummy. The final deciding factor was the fact that tea smoked chicken is a pretty common food here in San Francisco.

The second part of the recipe was again a total experiment. I made a standard bechemel sauce and added about a teaspoon of rose essence. It totally worked in this recipe. I am not sure I would serve rose bechemel with anything else but, here its really groovy. I have read that Rose and Saffron go really well together and I debated with myself about making saffron flavored ravioli dough for this recipe. In the end I chickend out (no pun intended) and just made regular dough. The next time I make this I am going for the saffron though. I'll post the success or failure of that step when I do

Ingredients

Conversions to European measurements can be found here!

Pasta and Stuffing

1 whole roasted chicken
fresh pasta dough
2 tablespoons dried rosebuds (or rose petal tea)
2 tablespoons ground cinammon
1 teaspoon whole black pepper corns
1 tablespoon ground cumin
Optional 2 tablespoons chicken broth

Bechemel Sauce with Rose Essence

2 cups milk
2 tablespoons blonde roux
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon rose essesnce

Garnish

1/4 cup fresh rose petals

Serves 4

Procedure

Stuffing

This is a totally easy stuffing just debone a roasted chicken and remove the skin and excess fat. Chop the meat into pretty small chunks and mix it with all the spices. If it's dry add a bit of chicken stock. Otherwise just set it aside.

Sauce

NOTE: Make the sauce at the very end just before serving. Cold or reheated bechemel is gross.

Begin my making a blonde roux. That's equal parts butter and flour--2 tablespoons of each. Heat these in a pot until they are well incorporated. Cook the flour just abit about a minute or so. Then add the milk. Make sure it is cold and pour it in all at once. Use a wire whisk to incorporate. Add the nutmeg and rose essence and remove from heat.

Assembly

Divide the pasta dough in half. Roll out the pasta dough into two thin sheets 12 inches by 18 inches. It helps to make one sheet of pasta slightly large than the other. The larger pasta sheet will become the top. Lay the smaller sheet onto a floured flat surface. Scoop small mounds of the chicken mixture onto the smaller pasta sheet. Use small scoops and put them about the width of your pinky finger apart. This will be useful later when sealing the dough around the mounds with the edge of your hand.

The next part can be tricky. You need to moisten the pasta between the mounds of stuffing. The moistened pasta dough will stick togther with a bit of preasure. I use a pastry brush dipped in water to moisen the dough. If you have a small pump sprayer filled with water that will work too. Just don't spray the stuffing with water.

Once the dough is moistened place the second, larger piece of dough on top. Use the edge of your hand to press the dough together around the mounds of stuffing. Push firmly and seal the edges tightly. The last step is to cut the dough into individual ravioli squares. You can use a pizza cutter or a knife if you don't have a pasta dough cutter.

Finish

Boil 4 quarts of water in a large pot with 1 tablespoon salt. Drop in all the raviolis all at once. Boil for about 3 minutes. When they are cooked they will float to the surface.

Drain the raviolis and place them in serving bowls. Ladle a small quanity of bechemel sauce over each bowl. Garnish with just a couple of rose petals.

Tricks

After you seal the ravioli edges allow them to dry out slightly. If the raviolis are wet on the edges when they go into the boiling water they are more likely to come apart. To dry them out, put the raviolis on wax paper and leave them in a cool dry place uncovered.

Rolling out pasta dough by hand sucks. There is just no other way to describe it. If you can afford it get a mechanical pasta roller. If not find a friend to ply with beer and take turns rolling out the dough

It helps to have a ravioli form. If you can afford it get one. I do mine by hand and I always have a few break in the boiling water. A ravioli form will pretty much guarantee the quality of your ravioli.

I mentioned it up there but in case you missed it serve the bechemel sauce hot and straight off the stove. Don't let it cool and don't re-heat it. I think its gross if not served fresh.