One of our guests this last week has a business where he takes people hunting and foraging in the wilderness, using traditional techniques to bring people closer to the spirit of the land, connection to the animals they kill and eat, and native american traditions (the techniques may be slightly updated from the true traditions, at least based on his Instagram feed showing modern compound bows made from carbon fiber and polyethylene string, rather than, say a piece of hickory wood and an animal sinew). It was interesting hearing him talk about it, and I’m sure that somewhere in the background, that led to my initial thought to start this post with a picture of a cute baby goat eating a carrot. Or it may just be that I desperately need a vacation. And, by the way, there are lots of cute pictures on the internet of baby goats eating carrots. Yes, I did go look.

So, another somewhat carrot based dish, or at least that’s where it started, that’s been in the works for awhile. The initial thought was a sort of carrot shaped filled pasta, or if that was too cute, something like Sardinian culurgioni, with the dough colored orange and flavored with carrot juice, and the filling being some sort of spicy lamb, and then just lightly napping the cooked pasta with something like a lamb demiglace. I even, a bit over a year ago, played around with a wholly vegetarian version that just focused on carrot in different guises.

So, remember last week’s purple carrots?

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me, and the idea of making an unusual and vivid pasta from their juice came to the fore. And coincidentally, we had two people coming last week who didn’t eat lamb, my usual lamb supplier didn’t have the cuts of lamb that I wanted, but had kid, or baby goat, and they were both fine with that (seems an odd aversion, to not be willing to eat lamb, though goat is fine, but so be it). And, with those two relatively minor changes, the dish all finally came together.

Isn’t that pretty?

• Pappardelle, made from half semolina and half high gluten flour; bound with a puree made from simmering the peeled purple carrots in just enough water to cover and then pureeing it until smooth and then passing it through a strainer.
• A kid ragout – sauteed finely chopped red onion, garlic, and orange carrots in olive oil until lightly caramelized, then added finely chopped chivito, or baby goat, leg, browning that, deglazing it with some red wine, then adding chopped tomatoes and portobello mushrooms, and some crushed szechuan peppercorns and chili flakes, along with salt and black pepper. Cooked slowly over low heat for about half an hour, adjusted the seasoning, and I had my ragout. Tossed with the cooked pasta and some smoked gouda cheese from reasonably local producer Don Atilio in Tandil, province of Buenos Aires.
• Sliced fennel, caramelized in a little olive oil and butter.
• Decorated with slices of limo chilies and fennel fronds.
• Served with Familia Bianchi Rosé Blend, Malbec & Pinot Noir, 2019, from San Rafaél, in Mendoza, a really rich, earthy rosé that I think both had the intensity to stand up to the ragout, but also being a rosé rather than red, the acidity to balance against it as well.

Given how close we are to the end of the year, and while not wanting to jinx the next two weeks or anything, I think I’m declaring this the best pasta dish of the year at Casa SaltShaker. But that’s just an in the moment reaction, and we shall see when I look back over the whole year for my end of it round-up in a couple weeks. At the least, though, this is the most interesting and unusual pasta we offered this year. I think. Again, I need a vacation.