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GIADA: Today, there are no shades of gray.
We're seeing the world in black and white, and it's delicious.
Chocolate fettuccine with peas and pancetta --
If you want to make someone feel special, here's how you do it.
Homemade chocolate noodles tossed with sage, brown butter,
and topped with creamy cheese.
White chocolate risotto -- all I have to say is "Wow!"
Creamy rice blended with sweet white chocolate, vanilla,
and blackberries.
Black and white Italian cocktail --
almost too beautiful to drink.
Dramatic layers of coffee liqueur, Amaretto,
***, and cream.
A black-and-white menu that's pure chocolate heaven.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
I'm starting with two cups of cake flour
for my chocolate fettuccine.
I love to make this when I have friends come over.
This and a salad and I'm done.
And it is a savory dish.
So, we're starting with 2 cups of cake flour,
and to the cake flour,
we're gonna add 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour.
The cake flour has a little bit less gluten in it,
which means that it creates a lighter, softer texture
in the pasta.
That's why we like to use it.
Next, the chocolate flavor.
So, we're gonna use 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder,
and you want to find nice, rich cocoa powder
so that this really has a lot of chocolate flavor in it.
And we're also gonna add four egg yolks.
So, this is a rich pasta,
but it's really delicious and totally worth it.
Go ahead and separate them, just like that.
Perfect. Okay.
So, we'll save this for later, and...
We're gonna add a little bit of salt, season it,
and we're gonna add some olive oil.
So, the olive oil adds richness, and, I don't know.
There's just that combo --
that rich olive oil, slightly sweet,
that really makes this divine.
1/4 cup of olive oil, and we also need 1/2 cup of water.
Just to keep the pasta from drying out.
And we're just gonna mix this all together.
So, here we go.
[ Mixer whirring ]
[ Mixer stops ]
There we go.
And we're gonna take the blade out, as well.
And the rest, we're gonna do by hand.
Add some flour to the board,
and we're gonna knead it all together.
Basically the same way my grandmother used to make it.
As you can see, it's nice and chocolaty,
and you just want to kind of knead it
to make sure all the egg and all the ingredients
are well-combined in here,
that you get a nice ball of dough.
And it smells like chocolate. [ Laughing ] It smells so good.
Wrap it up in a little bit of plastic wrap.
And we're gonna just pop it in the fridge
for about 30 minutes to chill,
and then we're gonna get started on the chocolate fettuccine.
[ Pasta machine whirring ]
I'm just running my pasta dough through my pasta machine,
and I just cut the dough in quarters,
and then I take one quarter at a time,
I roll it out a little bit,
and then I feed it through the machine.
'Cause you want to get it thin enough
so that you can actually make the fettuccine.
So, then...
I'm just gonna need to cut the dough.
[ Whirring stops ]
We'll turn that off.
You want to cut the dough in half so it's not too long.
Makes it a little easier to work with.
Just like that. And land them right there.
Then I need to switch my attachment.
There we go.
And it has little teeth inside that cut it like fettuccine.
I'm gonna show you right now.
You take one of your strips of pasta,
you turn on your machine, and here we go!
[ Whirring resumes ]
And there come the fettuccine!
There we go.
How beautiful is that?
And it really feels like such an accomplishment.
You can just look at them. They're so beautiful.
So, then, I put them on a tray
that I've just sprinkled with a little bit of cocoa powder
to keep them from sticking together.
Reinforcing that chocolate flavor.
Then I take the next sheet and I just, again, feed it through.
It's super cool.
This is what makes making fresh pasta so worth it.
Look how beautiful that is.
Isn't that beautiful?
Then I just put them on this tray.
So, I'm gonna finish making the rest of my fettuccine.
And then I'm gonna cook it and make the sauce.
I'm getting started on the sauce for my chocolate fettuccine,
and what I'm doing here is just browning some pancetta.
You just want it to get nice and crispy.
There we go.
Take it out and just leave it on a plate lined with paper towel,
just to absorb any of the extra grease.
It's just little bits of saltiness
with the chocolate pasta is so good.
It's so good. It's such a great combo.
Now... [ Chuckles ]
...to this pan, I'm gonna add a few tablespoons --
3 to be exact -- of butter.
I know it sounds decadent, but I said it was pretty decadent,
so you can't eat this all the time,
but once in awhile, ah, it's fantastic.
We need to brown the butter.
So, we're gonna give the butter a couple of minutes to brown.
In the meantime, I'm gonna start cooking my fettuccine.
Season the pasta water with a little bit of salt,
and I've also added a little bit of vegetable oil into the water.
Just like a teaspoon,
just to make sure that the pasta doesn't stick.
And here we go.
Here is our beautiful chocolate fettuccine.
Look at those.
So, what we do is just take a bunch at a time
and put it into the boiling water.
There we go.
And fresh pasta doesn't take as long to cook as dried pasta,
so it'll probably cook in about 5 minutes or so.
Okay.
And we're going to just give it a quick little stir,
make sure it starts cooking.
We're gonna add a few sage leaves right into the butter
to get a little crispy, herby flavor.
I love the smell.
The smell of sage is pretty intense.
It gets a strong smell, but it's sort of lemony, as well.
What we're gonna do is just add the sage leaves
right into the butter.
They also infuse herby flavor into the butter itself.
And the butter is sort of the basis of this sauce.
Perfect.
So, while those fry up...
...we're gonna get started on the mascarpone cream
that's gonna go on top.
We're gonna do ½ cup of mascarpone.
And I let it come to room temperature before I use it
so that it is a little bit creamier.
1/4 cup of grated parmigiano -- a little salty bite.
And then we're also gonna add ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Just a little bit of that gourmet sweetness.
I'm telling you, it's a great combo.
And we just mix it all together, just like that,
and our mascarpone cream for the top is all done.
All right, so, we're gonna set that aside.
We're gonna use it in a little bit.
Time to get our little sage leaves out that we fried.
And it only takes a couple of minutes.
And as you take them out, like anything else,
when you fry it, it crisps up.
So, it's really good.
Now...
...we're gonna add ½ cup of little frozen peas,
and we just defrosted the peas,
so we're just gonna warm them through.
That's really all we're gonna do with this.
There we go.
I like them for color, and I also like them
for a little bit of sweetness when you bite into them.
Perfect.
All right, let's check on this pasta.
Pasta looks ready.
Let's give this a try.
There we go.
Look at that.
[ Blows ]
Mmm! Perfect.
Perfect, perfect.
All right, we're gonna add the fettuccine
directly into the peas.
I love that color combo.
[ Hums ]
So, now, I'm gonna add the pancetta and the sage back in.
And can you see all the colors and the flavors?
It's just so pretty.
And then you just want to give it a toss.
We're gonna turn off the heat
and just toss all of the ingredients together.
Here we go. Mix it all together.
[ Chuckles ] I love it.
All right, let's grab a plate.
And I'm gonna show you how I'm gonna finish this all off.
Here we go.
So, we take a little bit of pasta.
Okay.
There we go.
Put it directly on the plate, just like that.
Then I top it with a nice dollop of the mascarpone cream
right on top.
Great.
And then to finish it all off -- and this is totally optional.
You don't have to do this.
I like to take a vegetable peeler and just kind of add
a few dark chocolate curls right over the top.
There we go.
And then...
take a bite.
Take a little bit of the mascarpone cream,
a little bit of the chocolate shavings,
the pasta, the pancetta, everything in one...
fabulous bite.
Mmm.
Mmm!
You got the salty pancetta.
The noodles are chocolaty, but soft and light,
and then you get all the creaminess
from the Parmesan cheese and the pancetta.
This is heaven on earth.
Mmm! All right.
I cannot get enough of this. [ Chuckles ]
Up next, I'm gonna make another really fun dish.
It's my white chocolate risotto.
A sweet version of an Italian classic.
White chocolate takes this dish over the top.
I'm adding some sugar to my almond milk
for my white chocolate risotto, and this is very decadent.
It's really, really good, though.
So, I added some sugar.
What you want to do is use unsweetened almond milk,
and then sweeten it as much as you want.
They do have sweetened almond milk
in the grocery store these days, but it tends to be too sweet,
and so, in the end, the risotto becomes too sweet.
So, I just use unsweetened,
and then I add a little bit of sugar.
Perfect.
Now, to really make this gourmet --
and one of my favorite things are vanilla beans.
And I buy these in bulk a lot of times,
and I just keep them in the fridge,
and I use them whenever I really want a nice,
intense gourmet sweetness,
and I like it in the almond milk a lot.
So, the vanilla bean is dried,
and I just open it with a paring knife.
It has all these wonderful seeds,
and they have so much flavor.
So, what we want to do
is add the seeds directly into the almond milk, just like that.
Get it all in there,
and then just add the entire pod in there to really flavor it.
So, while that heats up --
There we go --
and the sugar dissolves, we're gonna get started on the rice.
So, what I want to do here
is just add 2 tablespoons of butter to my pan.
So, we're gonna add 2 cups of Arborio rice to the butter.
And Arborio rice is the short-grain,
starchy Italian rice that we use for risotto,
and what I love about it is
as you slowly allow it to cook and add liquid to it,
it releases its natural starches and it gets to be, like,
this smooth, creamy rice dish that is just phenomenal.
Here we go.
And we're just gonna give this a quick, little stir.
The whole idea here is that you toast the grains of rice
to give it sort of a little bit of a nuttier flavor.
There we go. And just kind of do that.
This is the traditional way of actually making a risotto.
Even if you're making it savory,
you always want to toast the rice first.
There we go.
We're gonna grab a ladle,
and we're gonna start adding the warmed almond milk in here.
There we go.
And these days, I'm a big fan of almond milk.
I've been using it in a lot of different dishes.
There we go.
So, you just want to add a few ladlefuls of almond milk.
Here we go.
And allow the rice to slowly start absorbing the flavor.
Okay.
So, while that cooks, I am gonna grate some white chocolate.
So, what I'm gonna do is, after the rice is cooked,
I'm going to actually add the white chocolate in
and allow it to melt through.
I'm gonna grate about 4 ounces of white chocolate,
and I like to buy white chocolate
sort of in chunks like this.
I think it just tastes better,
and it's easier to grate, as well.
All right, let's take a look at our rice here.
There we go.
And we're gonna add some more almond milk.
There we go.
Perfect.
Just kind of scrape the bottom.
Make sure that the rice doesn't stick to the bottom.
And you definitely want to make risotto
in a heavy Dutch oven pan like this,
because it has more controlled heat,
and that way nothing burns.
It's all evenly heated on the bottom.
And it cooks the rice nice and slowly at an even temperature.
All right, back to the grating here.
We've got our white chocolate.
Gorgeous!
That is so yummy.
Okay. Let's just take a look.
My risotto looks beautiful. Look at that.
It just absorbs all the liquid.
All right.
Need to add a little bit of salt,
just to even out the flavors.
Now...time for the chocolate.
We're gonna add the white chocolate right on top.
In fact, I'm gonna grab a knife and help me out here.
There we go.
All the white chocolate directly in there.
And the thing about white chocolate
is it melts so quickly.
It really does.
So, the heat of the rice --
We're gonna turn off the stove --
will melt the chocolate right in there
and just give it a really velvety,
sort of sweet, creamy bite in here.
Okay.
Chocolate's in.
Now, I'm gonna grab a plate,
and I'm gonna show you how I like to put this all together.
Here we go.
I've got a little plate here.
Grab a spoon.
And...
...grab the plate,
and we're just gonna put a little bit of the risotto
right on the plate.
Then I grab three blackberries,
and the blackberries are really nice in here
because they kind of even it out.
They have a nice, tart, little bite to them,
so it's really good with the white chocolate.
Then I take some dark chocolate and I just kind of grate
a little bit of dark chocolate over the top.
You just can't ever have enough chocolate.
I'm a chocoholic, and I just love it.
Is that not beautiful?
Ta-da!
My white chocolate risotto.
And now for the finale.
There we go.
[ Blows ]
Mmm.
Mmm.
Oh, my gosh.
Creamy, perfectly sweet between the dark chocolate
and the white chocolate,
and you get that tart little burst of flavor
from the blackberry.
Absolute perfect, decadent desert.
Oh, my goodness.
Another one of my absolute faves.
Okay, up next, a cocktail that I think will go great with this.
It's my black-and-white Italian.
A sexy layered cocktail with an unexpected kick.
GIADA: I'm starting with the ice cube
for my black-and-white Italian cocktail.
Take some coffee and put it in a silicone tray,
and then I put it in the freezer.
And you could definitely do this with a regular ice cube tray
if you wanted to, but this kind of gives it a nice 1950s feel.
I like it a lot.
So, next, the alcohol.
We're gonna start with 1 ounce of ***, flavorless.
And I think it'll be really good with the coffee.
I'll pour that right in there.
And we'll do 1 ounce of coffee liqueur.
Nice, strong -- ahh -- coffee flavor.
Then we're gonna do ½ ounce of Amaretto.
And the Amaretto has, like, a very potent almond smell.
It's an almond liqueur, and we use it a lot in Italy.
½ ounce.
It's nice and sweet, too.
Okay.
So, now, we're gonna add some half and half right on top.
Here we go.
Gently pour.
There we go. And see how it stays separate?
Ooh, it's -- it's so cool.
And then I just top it off with sort of, like,
a warm, sweet hug --
a little bit of ground cinnamon, just a pinch.
Just like that.
And that is my black-and-white Italian cocktail.
Super fun.
So, then, to drink,
I just take a spoon and I kind of just mix it all around.
But I sure love looking at it.
There we go.
Give it a quick little mix.
Here we go.
Mmm.
Ah.
It's perfection.
It's kind of like a creamy iced latte,
but with a nice kick to it.
It's absolutely divine.
Cheers. Cin-cin.