Tonite we tried making pasta alfredo for the first time. We used the (recently trending?) bowl method so we
- Cooked the pasta (about ~8oz of cellentani/cavatappi)
- Scooped it all directly from the water into a big metal bowl
- Added about ~3tbsp butter, cut into separate pads
- Stir/shook it all til the butter melted (I thought we did it pretty vigorously!)
- Slowly added in ~1c of parmesan that we’d grated ourselves while continuing to stir & shake
- Noticed that the cheese was becoming a bit stuck together/gloopy despite adding it slowly
- Tried adding some more butter & pasta water while stirring and shaking
- Put it back in the (empty) pasta pot to try to use some of that residual heat to melt the cheese more, still stirring/shaking
Putting it back in the warm pot did seem to help the cheese melt a bit better, but it still ended up kinda gloopy/cheese stringy rather than a creamy sauce, even after we added a bit more butter & reserved pasta water.
We still added some pepper and ate it, along with the chicken we’d made to add too, it wasn’t a bad meal overall, it just wasn’t the creamy sauce we were going for.
Do you think maybe we lost too much heat while waiting for the butter to melt? Or did we need a specific kind of parm rather than just a regular one that we grated ourselves? Or our stir & shake wasn’t vigorous enough despite our best efforts?
I know you can’t say for certain, but any tips to help improve our chances of success next time would be so appreciated! Thanks! :)
I’ve never heard of it being made with pasta water, but with the traditional Cream / Parmesan / Butter recipe, I cook it in a wide saute pan or skillet (12+ inches).
The other thing is that I use grated, not shredded Parmesan. If I only have shredded, I put it in the food processor for a couple of minutes to crumble it.
I start with the butter and cream, and bring it to a simmer and stir to melt the butter. Then add the Parmesan and stir for 30 - 60 seconds until it starts to melt, then add the cooked pasta to the pan and stir to coat.
I think this works well because the pan is shallow, so it cooks quickly. It’s also the way I was taught in a restaurant I worked at many years ago, and we made it to order, and had variations (chicken / shrimp / primavera) where the ingredients were cooked in butter in the pan first, then the alfredo was built in the pan on top of whatever was there.
Ohh okay! Maybe I’ll just try that more “traditional” method next time, your explanation of it sounds less difficult than I thought it’d be haha. I like that your way would use all the flavor that’s still in the pan from our chicken, too! Thank you for sharing your experience! :)