The Trick to Getting a Light and Cheesy Fettucine Pasta
My quick and easy take on an old favorite
Here is my take on fettuccine alfredo! I am going to show you the key trick to ensure you don’t end up with pasta that turns into a brick after sitting on the counter for 7 minutes.
Now, cooking pasta can be somewhat contentious, so I am going to stipulate that this is just my version of fettuccine alfredo, and I am not at all claiming that this is the authentic recipe. For more information on all the mistakes I made, please check out the angry comments down below :)
Also — this recipe comes together quick, so it’s not a bad idea to have everything ready and measured out before you start cooking. It will save you a little bit of panic down the line.
Alright let’s get into it.
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 lb. or 1/2 box fettucine
65g or 2.3 oz. parmesan cheese
56g or 1/4 cup butter
18g salt
1/2 cup milk
3 quarts water
Measure out the ingredients
So today I am making half a pound of pasta, which is basically half a box of fettucine alfredo. If you wanna make a whole pound, feel free to just double everything here.
The first thing we want to measure out is the parmesan cheese. For ½ a pound of pasta, or half a box, we need about 65 grams or 2.3 oz. of parmesan cheese. I don’t recommend going by volume here because the cheese is quite fluffy. Man No matter how careful or clean I try to be, using a box grater just seems to send bits of cheese flying in all directions.
Next we need to measure off a quarter cup or 56 grams of butter.
After this, we need 18 grams of salt - this is what we are going to use to season the water. Now, normally having this exact measurement of salt doesn't really matter (as long as the water is salty), but since we will use the pasta water later, we don’t want it to be over or under salty, so it’s useful to have a measurement.
Lastly we need the controversial ingredient, 1/2 a cup of milk.
Cook the pasta
Ok, the first thing we need to do is cook the pasta. Start by heating 3 quarts of water in a big ole pot and add the salt in.
Once the water begins to boil, add in the fettuccine. The cooking method stated on the back of my box of pasta said to cook the pasta for 10 minutes, but we actually want to stop cooking it at 8 minutes because this stuff is going to get a second cooking.
As we approach the 8 minute mark, go ahead and carefully pull out approx. 1 cup of the pasta water - you could also do this over the sink during straining if that’s a little more comfortable for you.
Once the pasta has finished cooking, drain the pasta but whatever you do, don’t rinse the pasta.
make the alfredo
While the pasta drains, melt the butter in a pan. Ideally you could do this during the last few minutes of the pasta cooking, but I’ve only got one burner in my filming set-up, so there ya go.
Once the butter is fully melted, toss the undercooked pasta into the butter. Using tongs, really try to coat all of the fettuccine. It’s going to cook further in the butter and drive off any last bit of water that still clung to the noodles.
After about 30 seconds go ahead and toss the parmesan in. Try to mix it all in, and after it’s somewhat equally distributed, go ahead and add in the milk. Finally, add in about a quarter of a cup of the pasta water.
The milk is actually optional, you can just thin this down with pasta water alone, and it’s still pretty tasty. Alternatively you could go in the other direction and use a little cream here for a fattier dish, but you can make that choice as you see fit.
Just keep mixing the noodles, water and cheese up while cooking over medium heat.
taste test
Now, at first it’s not going to look great. The pasta, the cheese and the water aren’t going to to gel together and you are going to think I am some internet charlatan who is out to trick people for internet views. However, as you keep stirring, and as the pasta continues to heat up, the starch in the water will thicken and emulsify everything into an nice uniform pasta-ey goodness. For me, the total time it took from when the noodles went into the pan to finished dish was exactly 5 minutes (according to my camera timer).
Once it looks like this, we are done! You may have to taste it for salt - I typically find it could use a little more salt. I am also going to add some black pepper, but that’s how I roll, you do you fam.
Alright serve that up and that’s it!
If you enjoyed this recipe, please consider sharing the video or subscribing, it really helps me out.
Alright see you all next week bai!
Condensed Recipe:
Measure out all ingredients in preparation
Cook the pasta in salted water for 8 mins
Extract 1 cup of pasta water
Drain pasta
Melt the butter
Toss in pasta and coat for 30 secs
Add parmesan until equally distributed
Add milk
Add pasta water
Mix together over medium heat
Taste for seasoning
Links:
Box Grater: https://amzn.to/3rjzDaB
Tongs: https://amzn.to/3ztwyrj
Cuisinart Burner: https://amzn.to/3xLyRFC
Sieve: https://amzn.to/3ipLuQv
Stainless steel pan: https://amzn.to/3eQPxEj
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