Pasta with Alfredo sauce is a beloved Italian-American dish… but in Italy nobody knows it!
The dish was invented in Rome in 1914 by an Italian restaurateur named Alfredo. He prepared a simple dish to nourish his wife after childbirth: a plate of fettuccine with butter and cheese. The dish was so delicious that it made its way onto the restaurant's menu. Two Hollywood stars visiting Rome tried it, adored it, and popularized it back in the States. Through word-of-mouth, American tourists flocked to the restaurant to savor the famous Alfredo sauce.
Today American cooks add cream to the sauce, but the original recipe consisted only of butter, cheese, and a secret ingredient: the starchy cooking water where the pasta is cooked.
Ingredients
3.5 oz of unsalted butter (preferably European cultured style)
7 oz of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (grated)
1 pound of fettuccine pasta
Salt
Method
Dice the butter and keep it in a small bowl on the side, at room temperature.
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Cook the fettuccine according to the packaging’s instructions in the big pot.Before you drain the pasta, with the help of a ladle, scoop 3 cups of the cooking water and keep it on the side in a bowl.
Grab a large ceramic/glass bowl (or a deep dish). Place the diced butter in the bowl/dish.
Now pour in the drained cooked pasta and start to gently mix with the help of tongues or 2 wooden spoons. The heat will begin to melt the butter. At this point add the grated Parmigiano cheese and keep mixing gently.
Now, start to add a little bit of the cooking water that you reserved earlier. Start with one ladle of water and mix the pasta. There is no set quantity for the amount of water to be added. The goal is to obtain a creamy luscious sauce, so check if you need to add more until you obtain a creamy consistency that you like. At this point, taste to check the saltiness, you might have to add more salt according to your taste.
Serve immediately, with some extra grated parmigiano if you wish. Buon Appetito!
Comments