Alfredo sauce - Pasta al Burro e ParmigianoI am a culinary blog

Do you know that once you've had real nigiri sushi or a good steak, the things you grew up with are no match? For me it was like this with Alfredo sauce. Once you've had the actual product, you'll wonder why the bottle / fast food version exists.

I recently had dinner with a friend at a new Italian place and we ordered the cacio e pepe. It was executed so well that I was sure they added something special to the dish - it couldn't just be cheese and ground pepper (it was).

He and his wife are excellent cooks who can make fresh pasta from scratch, so I was a bit surprised and asked him if he had ever had a good Alfredo sauce. He hadn't even tried! I was deeply surprised - real Alfredo sauce is a work of art that everyone must try at least once.

Romaine Alfredo Sauce

Alfredo sauce is like nigiri sushi - a masterclass in minimalism. It's just butter and cheese, but just like cacio e pepe, the two ingredients in Alfredo sauce combine to produce a huge world of flavors that you will never believe.

In Italy, it's considered basic comfort food, like boxed macaroni and cheese to us, but here most people never consider making it from scratch, or just making it from scratch. They do, they try to replicate the jarred product with dozens of ingredients and loads of it. working to produce an inferior sauce. If you've never made the real 2-ingredient version, you owe it to yourself to try it today.

What is Alfredo sauce?

Alfredo sauce consists of pasta with butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. It differs from simply buttered pasta by dramatically increasing the amount of butter that you would reasonably use in a classic Italian pasta dish, even if you are using butter. It was invented by Alfredo di Lelio in a trattoria in Rome and made to order on the table, as was the style of that time.

Imagine having it somewhere here, in times past:

How to make Alfredo sauce

• Cook your pasta 3 minutes before can time in well salted boiling water.
• Melt your butter over low heat in a small nonstick skillet while the pasta is waiting.
• Transfer the paste with tongs in the pan with 1 cup pasta water. If you don't have tongs, reserve 1 cup pasta water and drain, then add to skillet without rinsing (never rinse pasta unless it's for salad).
• Dump the dough in pasta water and butter for 3 minutes over high heat, or until sauce is shiny and crisp. Make sure to flip the pasta every now and then so it cooks evenly. Remove from the fire.
• Add cheese and mix until cheese is evenly melted. Season with sea salt if necessary. Take advantage immediately.

Almost authentic Alfredo sauce

The original Alfredo sauce was a mixture of fresh pasta, young Parmigiano cheese, and butter. In this version, I use aged Parmigiano-Reggiano and dry pasta. As the Italians say, Alfredo sauce is a simple comfort food, and we always have Parmigiano-Reggiano in the fridge and canned pasta in the pantry.

Alfredo sauce with or without cream

But maybe you feel like you prefer the super creamy version and wonder why you should try this recipe. Well done well, this version is creamy too!

More importantly, most versions have a long list of ingredients to differentiate themselves from the original. Why go the extra mile and buy the extra ingredients? The richness and complexity of true Parmigiano-Reggiano + grass-fed butter will blow your mind without the need to mix cream, cream cheese, garlic, or dried herbs. It makes it look simple, but not only is this version easier with fewer ingredients and cheaper, it's also tastier.

Fresh pasta vs dry pasta

I tried this with fresh pasta and dry pasta, and I personally prefer dry pasta, both for its ease and because I find that it shows the flavors better. Some of these photos were taken with fresh homemade tagliatelle, but if I'm honest I'm happiest with the canned bucatini.

What kind of butter to use

There are only two ingredients in this sauce, so I vote for you to choose the best butter you can get. For me, it's local or grass-fed Irish butter. My best butter in the world is Icelandic, but you're very lucky if you can get it where you live.

What size tray do you need?

You need a skillet that is as small as your pasta. Serves 2, about an 8 '' skillet. If all you have is a larger skillet, it will still work, but the pasta won't cook as much, so you need to cook it 1 to 2 minutes before you can transfer it to the skillet.

Grated cheese

If you're melting cheese, you don't need to use a labor-intensive microplane or fine grater. I use the rough holes on a box grater (this one) and the cheese looks fantastic and melts evenly.

Variations

This sauce is the most perfect base for anything you want to make with pasta:

The list is endless and always delicious. This is definitely one of the best sauces ever, I hope you give it a try.

-Michael