Italian Open Raviolo with Cannonau Braised Venison, Porcini Cream, Dark Chocolate and Black Truffle | Raviolo Aperto al Cervo Brasato al Cannonau, Crema di Porcini, Cioccolato Fondente e Tartufo Nero
An open raviolo is an argument about proportion. Two thin sheets of egg pasta, no sealed border, and whatever sits between them has nowhere to hide. Here that is Sardinian red deer braised three hours in Cannonau, a porcini cream built on mushroom soaking liquid, dark chocolate melted into the braising juices, and black truffle shaved over at the pass.
The chocolate makes people suspicious and has the longest history on this island. It is not there to sweeten anything. Two thirds of an ounce of 70 percent chocolate stirred off the heat into a reduced game sauce deepens the colour, rounds the acidity the wine leaves behind and gives body without flour or cream. Taste before and after and you will not identify chocolate, only a sauce that holds together.
Everything is built to be assembled in under a minute. The venison is braised the day before and improves for it, the cream is held warm, and service is ninety seconds of pasta and a truffle slicer.
Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 50 minutes. Cook: 3 hours 30 minutes. Rest: overnight for the braise. Difficulty: advanced. Course: primo. Region: Sardinia, Barbagia and Ogliastra.
The Story
The open raviolo is a modern Italian invention with a documented birthday. Gualtiero Marchesi built the first in Milan in 1982, two unsealed squares of pasta with scallops and ginger between them, to break the rule that a filling must be hidden. Every version since borrows the same permission: the pasta is a frame, not a parcel.
What goes inside is Sardinian and older. Red deer live in the Sulcis and the Sarrabus, a population down to a few hundred animals in the nineteen sixties and rebuilt by protection since. Venison here has always meant autumn, the woods rather than the pasture, and long cooking rather than the grill. The wine comes from Jerzu and Oliena, with enough tannin and dried fruit depth to survive three hours over low heat without turning sour.
Chocolate in a savoury Sardinian sauce sounds like a chef's conceit and is a survival of Spanish rule. The island belonged to the Crown of Aragon and then to Spain from the fourteenth century until 1720, and chocolate reached Europe through Spanish ports. Spanish kitchens thickened game sauces with unsweetened chocolate long before the rest of Europe drank it sweet, and the habit stayed in the hunting dishes here. The porcini come from the Barbagia woods, the black truffle from the same interior, around Laconi and the Barbagia di Seulo.
Ingredients
For the pasta
Tipo 00 flour, 1 1/2 cups (190 g)
Durum wheat semola rimacinata, 1/3 cup (55 g)
Egg yolks, 6
Whole egg, 1
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
For the venison braise
Venison shoulder, boneless, in 2 inch pieces, 1 lb 5 oz (600 g)
Cannonau di Sardegna, 2 cups (480 ml)
Unsalted game or beef stock, 1 1/2 cups (360 ml)
Onion, carrot and celery, finely diced, 1 each
Garlic cloves, crushed, 2
Tomato paste, 1 tbsp (16 g)
Juniper berries, crushed, 6, and bay leaves, 2
Fresh rosemary and myrtle, 1 sprig each
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the porcini cream
Dried porcini, 1 oz (28 g)
Warm soaking water, 1 1/2 cups (360 ml)
Fresh porcini or cremini, sliced, 7 oz (200 g)
Shallot, thinly sliced, 1
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (28 g)
Heavy cream, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
For finishing the sauce
Dark chocolate 70 percent, chopped, 2/3 oz (18 g)
Cold unsalted butter, cubed, 1 1/2 tbsp (21 g)
Red wine vinegar, 1 tsp (5 ml)
For finishing and garnish
Fresh black truffle, 1/2 oz (14 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, grated, 1/4 cup (25 g)
Unsalted butter for the pasta, 1 tbsp (14 g)
Coarse salt, 2 tbsp (30 g) for 4 quarts (3.8 l) of water
Flat leaf parsley leaves, 8
Preparation
Soaking the porcini and building the mushroom base
Cover the dried porcini with the warm water for 30 minutes. Lift them out with your fingers rather than pouring, so the grit stays at the bottom, then strain the liquid through a coffee filter. Half goes into the cream, half into the braise. Chop the porcini. Melt the butter, sweat the shallot without colour, add the fresh mushrooms and cook until the water they release has evaporated and the pan squeaks.
Braising the venison in Cannonau
Dry the venison thoroughly and season it. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole and brown the pieces in two batches, never crowding the pan. Set the meat aside, lower the heat and cook the onion, carrot, celery and garlic for 10 minutes until sweet. Stir in the tomato paste and let it darken. Pour in the Cannonau, scrape the base clean and reduce by half before the meat returns with the stock, half the porcini liquid and the aromatics.
Holding the braise at the right temperature
Bring it to a bare simmer, cover with the lid ajar and hold it on the lowest burner or in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 3 hours. The surface should tremble and no more; a hard bubble squeezes the venison into dry fibres and turns the wine bitter. Check at two hours and add hot stock if the meat is no longer half covered.
Reducing the braising liquid and finishing it with chocolate
Lift the meat out, cool it slightly and pull it into short shreds with two forks, discarding sinew. Strain the liquid, pressing the vegetables through the sieve, skim the fat and reduce it to about 1 cup (240 ml) that coats a spoon. Two thirds goes back over the meat. Take the last third off the heat while hot but below a simmer, scatter in the chocolate, wait 30 seconds and stir until it disappears. Add the vinegar and whisk in the cold butter one cube at a time until glossy. Chocolate over direct heat seizes into grains that never recombine.
Finishing the porcini cream
Add the chopped porcini and the rest of the soaking liquid to the mushroom base and simmer 8 minutes. Pour in the cream, return to a simmer, season and blend smooth. Pass it through a fine mesh sieve and hold it warm. It should pour slowly and settle flat. If thicker, loosen with hot water, never more cream, which dulls the mushroom.
Making and rolling the pasta
Mix the flours with the salt, make a well, add the yolks and whole egg and bring it together into a firm dough. Knead 10 minutes, wrap and rest 1 hour. Roll to the second thinnest setting, thin enough to read print through but not so thin that it tears when lifted. Cut eight squares of about 4 1/2 inches (11 cm), dust with semola and keep them separated under a cloth.
Cooking the pasta and salting the water
Bring 4 quarts (3.8 l) of water to a rolling boil and salt with 2 tablespoons (30 g), enough to season the sheets without competing with the braise. Reheat the meat in its sauce. Lower the squares in two at a time and cook 90 seconds from the moment the water returns to the boil, until supple and showing no pale line. Lift them out with a spider and slide them into a wide pan with the butter and a spoonful of cooking water.
Plating
Warm four wide shallow bowls to around 140°F (60°C). A cold plate takes the gloss off a mounted butter sauce and skins the porcini cream, and this dish has little mass to hold its own heat. Have everything within reach before the pasta goes in.
Spoon two tablespoons of porcini cream slightly off centre and let it find its own shape. Lay the first square over it so the cream shows at the edges. Pile the venison in the middle, no wider than three inches, then lay the second square on top at an angle so the filling stays visible on all four sides.
Spoon the chocolate finished sauce around the base, never over the top sheet, where it slides off and pools. Shave the truffle at the pass, holding the slicer close so the shavings land flat. Finish with the Parmigiano Reggiano, a few parsley leaves and nothing else.
Professional Technique
The controlling technique is chocolate used as an emulsifier rather than a flavour. Cocoa solids carry roughly 50 percent fat and useful natural lecithin, and both go to work on a braising liquid already rich in gelatin. Off the heat, at around 160°F (70°C), the chocolate melts in and the lecithin stabilises the butter that follows, which is why the sauce turns glossy instead of separating into a ring of fat. The bitterness of a 70 percent bar also cancels the sharp edge Cannonau leaves. Past about 2/3 oz, the sauce stops tasting of deer.
The second is splitting the braising liquid into two sauces with different jobs. Two thirds goes back over the meat, where it has to be absorbed and disappear, so it stays thin. One third is enriched and mounted so it can sit on the plate with its own shine. A single pot would force one consistency to do both, and the filling would be dry or would bleed.
The third is treating the sheets as two elements rather than a parcel. Because nothing is sealed they cook evenly and fast and the filling never steams inside, so the pasta can be rolled thinner than a closed raviolo tolerates and the timing is set by the sheet alone.
Texture and Moisture Control
Three moisture levels sit together without migrating. The porcini cream underneath is the wettest and the likeliest to thin out, because any water clinging to the pasta runs into it. Lifting the sheets with a spider and letting them hang two seconds is the whole defence. The filling should glisten but not release liquid when pressed; if it does, two more minutes in a wide pan will fix it.
Pasta texture depends on rolling to the second thinnest setting and no further. The last setting collapses under the filling and tears when you lift the top square; one step thicker stays chewy in ninety seconds. The six yolks are not richness for its own sake: yolk fat and protein limit gluten development, keeping a thin sheet tender rather than elastic.
Temperature holds the plate together. The cream goes down at about 150°F (65°C), the filling comes off the heat hot, the sauce is mounted last and never boils again. Butter mounted sauces break above about 190°F (88°C), and once chocolate is in one it cannot be rescued. Keep it off the flame and whisk it once more before plating.
Professional Mise en Place
The dish is a long braise and a very short assembly, so every slow operation moves to the day before. Only the pasta and the truffle happen during service.
Equipment and tools
Heavy casserole with a lid, 5 quart (4.7 l) or larger
Pasta machine and a straight wheel cutter
High speed blender and a fine mesh conical sieve
Coffee filter for the porcini liquid
Spider skimmer, wide sauté pan, truffle slicer
Prepared ahead
Venison braised, shredded and held in its sauce, up to 2 days ahead
Porcini cream, up to 2 days ahead, refrigerated and rewarmed gently
Strained porcini soaking liquid divided and reserved
Pasta dough made and rested, up to 1 day ahead
Pasta squares cut, dusted with semola and held under a cloth
Service setup
Salted water at a rolling boil, 4 quarts (3.8 l)
Porcini cream warm in a bain marie, loosened with hot water if needed
Venison hot in its sauce over the lowest heat, covered
Reduced sauce warm off the flame, cold butter cubed beside it
Bowls at 140°F (60°C), truffle brushed clean, slicer set
Chef Tips
Braise the venison the day before without exception. Game muscle keeps absorbing its liquid as it cools, and meat left overnight in its own sauce is far more succulent than the same meat straight from the pot. The fat also sets into a layer you lift off whole.
Buy chocolate you would eat on its own, 70 percent cocoa, with nothing but cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar and lecithin on the label. Cooking chocolate carries more sugar and vanilla and both show up in a savoury sauce. Chop it fine, or it melts slowly enough that you will reach for the heat.
Choose the truffle by smell. Sardinian and Umbrian winter black truffle should smell of wet earth and cocoa, and one that smells of nothing will taste of nothing however much you shave. Keep it in a sealed jar with raw rice for no more than four days.
If venison shoulder is hard to find, wild boar shoulder works on the same timing and beef cheek at about 3 hours 30 minutes. Never use venison loin or any lean cut: there is no collagen in it, the sauce never gains body, and three hours of braising ruins it.
Common Mistakes
Adding the chocolate over direct heat. It seizes into gritty specks the moment it meets a hot pan base and no whisking brings the sauce back. Take the pan off the flame, let the liquid drop below a simmer and wait half a minute.
Boiling the braise instead of holding it at a tremble. Venison shoulder is lean and a hard bubble tears the fibres apart before the collagen turns to gelatin, leaving meat dry and stringy at once. The surface should barely move for 3 hours.
Using the porcini soaking liquid without straining it. Dried mushrooms carry fine grit that settles at the bottom of the bowl, and pouring the liquid off puts every grain into the sauce. Lift them out by hand and filter the liquid.
Shaving the truffle in advance. The aromatics are volatile and truffle shaved five minutes early has lost most of what you paid for. Shave it over the finished dish.
Sealing the edges out of habit. Pinched shut it is a large ravioli with a thin wall, it steams inside, and the filling stops being visible. The sheets sit loose and offset.
Wine Pairing
Cannonau di Sardegna DOC: The bottle the venison was braised in and the first choice on any Sardinian table. A Riserva from Jerzu or Oliena brings dried plum, myrtle and a warm earthy finish that meets the juniper and bay head on, and its soft round tannin does not fight the butter. Since the same wine is reduced into the dish, the glass continues it.
Barolo DOCG: The classic partner for black truffle and the most structured wine here. Nebbiolo tannin is high and fine grained and cuts the gelatin and mounted butter in a way softer reds cannot, while the tar, rose and dried cherry sit alongside shaved truffle. Take a bottle with eight years behind it; a young Barolo overwhelms the venison.
Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG: For anyone who wants the chocolate answered rather than balanced. Sagrantino carries more tannin than any other Italian grape, with blackberry and a dry bitter cocoa finish of its own, and the two bitternesses recognise each other instead of colliding. It needs the fat of the cream to soften it; serve at 64°F (18°C).
Aglianico del Vulture Superiore DOCG: Grown on volcanic soil in Basilicata and the most savoury option here. Its acidity is unusually high for a southern red and lifts a plate that is rich from beginning to end, while the smoky mineral edge under the black fruit echoes the dried porcini. A ten year old bottle lets the truffle through.
Alghero DOC: The Sardinian alternative for a table that finds Barolo too severe. The reds from the Catalan corner of the island, often Cagnulari or Cabernet blended with local fruit, give ripe dark fruit and a gentler tannic frame with real length. It carries the braise and keeps the pairing on the island.
Storage & Reheating
Store the components separately, never the assembled dish, which does not survive an hour. The braised venison in its sauce keeps 3 days refrigerated in an airtight container and 2 months frozen, submerged in its liquid so the shreds do not dry out. The porcini cream keeps 2 days refrigerated and 1 month frozen, but needs blending again after thawing.
Reheat the venison in a covered pan over low heat with a spoonful of stock until steaming. Rewarm the cream over a bain marie and stop as soon as it is hot to the finger. The chocolate finished sauce must be made fresh: reheating breaks a mounted butter sauce, and one carrying chocolate cannot be brought back the way a plain beurre monté can.
Uncooked squares hold on a semola dusted tray under a cloth for 4 hours, or refrigerated between parchment for 1 day. Cooked sheets do not keep. Do not freeze fresh truffle, which thaws to grey pulp; bury a surplus in coarse salt or infuse it into butter and freeze that.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings:
Calories: 720 kcal
Total Fat: 34 g
Saturated Fat: 16 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 16 g
Cholesterol: 395 mg
Sodium: 780 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 52 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 5 g
Added Sugars: 2 g
Protein: 45 g
Lactose: 1.8 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, zinc, vitamin B12, niacin, selenium, phosphorus, copper
These figures are estimates. Most of the alcohol evaporates during the braise and most of the pasta salt is discarded, so the real sodium depends on the stock.
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