OK back again, i am looking for a good Alfredo recipe.

[Jason]

OK i am back for more questions haha i am looking for a good Alfredo recipe, anyone care to share? I had one recipe that i did today for the first time and it came out ok but the parm cheese really over powered the taste os pretty much everything else. It seemed easy enough called for heavy cream, (which i had to use table cream cause i could not find heavy cream here) parm cheese, and butter. Simple right . . . . . not really. Hope someone out there has a good one for me and thanks to everyone who has helped me so far!

[boar_d_laze]

This is the real recipe as made at Alfredo's in Rome. However, although named for the restaurant and its owner, it wasn't "invented" there. At least not in any meaningful way. It's just an al burro sauce, same as everywhere in Italy. If there's anything special about it, it's the way an emulsion is created at the table. The dish is about two things. Freshness and texture.

Ingredients:

1 lb best quality fettuccine or tagliatelle
8 oz very good butter (2 sticks)
8 oz parmigiana reggiano cheese, freshly grated to fluffy powder
Kosher or sea salt
Pepper grinder.
Quantites given are for dried pasta, if you use 1 lb fresh, cut butter and cheese to 6 oz each. Remember, good dried pasta is better than mediocre fresh.

Technique:

Allow butter to come to room temperature. Mix butter with cheese until cheese is completely absorbed, and mixture is very smooth. This takes about 3 minutes at low speed in a stand mixer if the butter started at room temp, longer if you cheated. Put half the sauce in a mixing/serving bowl. Set the other half aside in an attractive dish, near the dining table.

Cook pasta al dente.

Working quickly, ladle 1/2 cup of pasta water into the mixing bowl. Drain the pasta. Add the pasta to the mixing bowl on top of the sauce and water. Carry the mixing bowl to the table, along with a nice, long-handled pair of serving spoons or spoon and fork. Add the reserved sauce to the top of the pasta. Toss rapidly until the sauce emulsifies and clings to the pasta. Dress with salt and pepper. Pass the salt cellar, pepper grinder, and extra cheese around the table.

Just to restate the obvious: Once you get the pasta out of the water, it's important to work very quickly because the sauce melts and emulsifies with the reserved heat from the pasta and pasta water. That's the only heat there is. So have everything in place and ready to go.

Note: This recipe has neither cream nor egg. It doesn't need any either. I've had cream/yolk/butter/cheese sauces called "Alfredo," and I ate Fettuccine Alfredo at Alfredo's in Rome in the early sixties. Ne'er the twain shall meet.

BDL

[Jason]

So BDL i have a question for you
1: How do know so much about so many different things if i may ask you, it is crazy to see how green i am at this but it is nice at the same time.

2: And this one i think i might know but not sure, what is parmigiana reggiano cheese? Or do you mean a really good parmesan cheese? The reason i ask is because of where i am right now. It is hard or sometimes even out of the question to find things that people here would call out of the norm.

[boar_d_laze]

Thanks for compliment. I spent time in the "hospitality industry" as a bouncer, a bartender, a line cook, and a caterer. I eat out. I ask questions. I listen. I read. I cook passionately. I try new things. I'm a sponge. I just happen to have that kind of memory.

My shoulder dislocated from patting myself on the back: Alfredo is a blast from my past. The first time I remember eating it was at Alfredo's in Rome in the summer of '63. Since then I've had good and bad versions many times. Made it many, many times along with every possible mistake, before returning to the simplest possible version based on reading something in one of Elizabeth David's books. It was a big favorite with my kids.

Really good parmesan cheese, yes. You can do a pretty good job of replicating the most expensive Italian version, which is Reggiano, by buying the triangles that come wrapped in wax and throwing them (still wrapped) into the back of your fridge for a month or two. Very dry environment, your fridge.

If you buy pre-ground, buy freshly ground. The stuff in tubes, like Kraft, is horrible. Don't bother.

BDL

[DC Sunshine]

BDL - you are a font of knowledge. Thank you for that recipe - as you say there's a myriad of what places/ppl define as being Al Fredo, from the best to the worst. So help me, my boy likes the packaged dehydrated type - add milk and butter and simmer for 8 min

I see there's been a recent change on what can be defined as Parmigano Reggiano (sp?) - it has to be from that district and noone else can make a claim to that name for their branding of the product. Same as when champagne went the same way. Doesn't bother me.

What I'm curious about is - how long will a block last in the fridge? I like to buy it when I can, but we don't use that much. Are we talking 3 months, 6 months, a year? I'm guessing you'd be the one to ask

Oh, just another note, Elizabeth David's books are great hey - I've got hers on French cooking, its only a paperback, and its falling apart now I've read it so much.
Thanks,
DC

[Ishbel]

My Mum bought Elizabeth David's books in the 50s - it was the food we grew up on, but we did live in various European countries where all the Mediterrranean produce was available.

It's amazing that when she wrote some of her earliest books, the UK was still suffering rationing!

I still have my Mum's books, but have also bought my own, too.

[siduri]

When i was a teenager, (we're talking 1960s) my best friend's family were neighbors with a friend of alfredo himself. On a vuisit to boston once, they invited him to do a demonstration of fettuccine alfredo.
This is what he did:
Drained the fettuccine, added butter and a slightly beaten egg, one per person, and lots of parmigiano and stirred it, and i believe let it sit a moment covered to cook the eggs slightly from the residual heat of the pot. (It wasn't put back on the fire). The eggs cook to a creamy consistency, the parmigiano and butter finish off the flavor. That was all. Basically it's a carbonara without the bacon.
Now, however, keep in mind that at piazza Augusto Imperatore, there are TWO Alfredo restaurants, both claiming to be the original. (Though i've lived in rome 35 years, i never ate in either.) So it's quite conceivable that there are two "original" recipes.
Once i suggested making fettuccine that way when my (Italian) inlaws came and they looked at me like i was crazy - EGG on EGG PASTA???!!! no way!!! and thought it was a pure "Americanata"

[Jason]

Well BDL you are very welcome for the compliment, and i can see you are a sponge from all the talks we have had!

So the only thing i can find out here is the small pre-packaged parm cheese but i think i can find it fresh at one store. So maybe that is the way i will go. I love how you said you dislocated your shoulder hahaha that was awesome.

So now i will have to put your recipe into good use! I will let you know how is goes when i can make it, hope to talk to you again soon BDL take care!

[boar_d_laze]

When you get that available Parmesan, buy a bunch and mark the date on the packages you don't use, and hide them from yourself in the back of the refrigerator. Over time, as you use it, you'll see what a difference even refrigerator age makes.

BDL

[GrandMasterD]

I have a great little recipe for Noodles Al Fredo.

Simmer fettachine in salted water 2 tablespoons of salt to 4 liters of water. Do this for about 16 minutes or till al dente.

While simmering, heat a skillet with 3 table spoons of unsalted butter. Add 1/2 cup of chicken stock an 1/2 cup of 35% cream. Then the sercet is to add only one or two tablespoons of Parmasan cheese (Reggio of course). Heat till incorporated and serve over the noodles. You can add parsely if you like.

This recipe is as good as the one served at Portofino's in Acapulco

[Jason]

I will have to try it out!! Thank you! Sorry i have not ben on much money has been tight and my stress level is through the roof. I think it is time to hit the kitchen again haha!

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by GrandMasterD

I have a great little recipe for Noodles Al Fredo.

Simmer fettachine in salted water 2 tablespoons of salt to 4 liters of water. Do this for about 16 minutes or till al dente.

While simmering, heat a skillet with 3 table spoons of unsalted butter. Add 1/2 cup of chicken stock an 1/2 cup of 35% cream. Then the sercet is to add only one or two tablespoons of Parmasan cheese (Reggio of course). Heat till incorporated and serve over the noodles. You can add parsely if you like.

This recipe is as good as the one served at Portofino's in Acapulco

An interesting cream/stock sauce, but what makes it Alfredo?

BDL

[GrandMasterD]

Originally Posted by boar_d_laze

An interesting cream/stock sauce, but what makes it Alfredo?

BDL

The Cheese I think.

I had Noodles Al'Fredo in Acapulco at Portofino's and I went back three times. I also had it at Epcot Center in the Italian place. This recipe is so close I can't distinguish it. Try it it is simple yet eligant. My wife and kids love it.

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by GrandMasterD

The Cheese I think.

I had Noodles Al'Fredo in Acapulco at Portofino's and I went back three times. I also had it at Epcot Center in the Italian place. This recipe is so close I can't distinguish it. Try it it is simple yet eligant. My wife and kids love it.

With all due respect, I disagree that the recipe you posted is an Alfredo sauce.

Alfredo's was (and still is) a restaurant in Rome that got famous as a result of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbank's patronage. They were two of the most famous people in the world when they got married, and their wedding didn't exactly lack publicity. On their honeymoon, also well publicized, they stayed in Rome and ate at Alfredo's frequently. Their favorite dish famously was something the owner, whose first name was Alfredo, made for them -- which was his own variation on fettuccine al burro and which he called, not unsurprisingly, Fettuccine Alfredo.

According to both his descendants and to the people who now own the restaurant, Alfredo made the sauce by very thoroughly creaming a lot of butter with a lot of cheese, then adding a little of the pasta cooking water, then adding (just cooked) fresh pasta on top and tossing. Alfredo supposedly got the ideas of creaming the cheese and butter so completely and of using fresh pasta (which wasn't very common in Italy until recently) because during his wife's pregnancy it was the only way she could keep it down. Going beyond morning sickness and on to other things: At Alfredo's, the tossing was done with solid gold spoons which Mary and Doug gave him as tokens of their regard. True dat.

As a result of the notoriety, Fettuccine Alfredo became immensely popular in the U.S. of A., and everyone and their brother tried to recreate the dish, or put their own spin on it. Cream and sometimes even an egg were added to the butter and cheese. Sometimes cream replaced the butter. However, at Alfredo's the dish continued to be made in the same way with the only allowable option being the choice of spinach fettuccine.

But stock? And almost no cheese? Whatever it is may be good, and deserves a name no doubt. But, sorry. I don't care what Portofino in Acapulco calls it. Alfredo is taken and your variation wanders too far to share the name.

Here's the original:

Fettuccine Alfredo

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup, well aged, finely grated Parmagiano
1 pound fresh fettuccine

Technique:
Cream the butter and cheese together until completely smooth. About 3 minutes in a mixer. About 5 - 10 by hand, depending on the hand. Place the butter in the bowl in which the pasta will be mixed and from which it will be served.

Cook the pasta in several gallons of well salted, boiling water to which a little olive oil was added . Fresh fettuccine takes about 3 minutes, four at most. Drain the fettuccine. While it is draining, add 1/4 cup of the pasta water on top of the butter and cheese mixture. Add the pasta immediately. Bring the bowl to the table and toss with a salad fork and spoon. Serve with the tossing utensils. Pass additional grated cheese.

BDL

[izbnso]

Jeezum, who are you really, boar d laze?
I’m starting to believe that you are either a minor culinary demi-god, a Rainmain-esque foodie idiot savant, or (most likely) merely from another dimension where knowledge of food prep and history are mystically absorbed via arcane rituals.
Surely thou art no mere mortal.