Pasta Alfredo – homemade doesn’t mean hard

It’s the last week of school for me right now, which means not a lot of time. Thus, I’ve been enjoying leftovers, but when those run out, I reach into the realm of quick meals. That term sounds like a pejorative, these days – referring to overly salty frozen TV dinners or other instant messes (not all frozen meals are bad – plenty are, though, and that’s a separate story anyway). This particular case, for me, meant pasta alfredo. Fancy restaurants will charge high prices for this meal, and while it’s never been vaunted as an Italian culinary peak, it’s never been fast food – you can buy jarred grocery store sauce, sure, but it’s not fast food. At any rate, I personally think it’s an absolutely fantastic meal… but that it’s so easy to make from scratch that there’s no good reason to eat it out or buy instant sauce, if you keep the ingredients about.

At any rate, today’s recipe took maybe 10-15 minutes to make, so that within half an hour of walking in the door from class and meetings I was eating it. Which, for comfort food, isn’t bad. Most of that time is spent cooking the pasta – the sauce itself takes at most 5 minutes. So, now, I’m fed, happy, and posting this up, because other people should be in that situation too.

Ingredients

1/2 pound pasta (This is a 1 or 2 person meal. It’s a lot for 1, but light for 2)

1/4 – 1/2 stick butter (Variable amounts from here down will be explained more later)

1/3-2/3 cup half and half (Heavy cream is ideal, but I never have it. Milk can be used, but, well, see below)

3-5 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese, or

3-5 tablespoons Pecorino Romano Cheese, or both (Both is best.)

Instructions

Warning: below is a long theory rant. The short version follows:

Make pasta

Drain pasta

Put pasta in pan, add sauce ingredients

Taste

Eat

For the full theory…

The main trouble with making this dish is knowing what you want. The proportions above are honestly more guesswork based upon ability to eyeball measurements and a large sample size of meals. This is a dish that is best cooked by experience and a known desire of what you want it to taste like – and subsequent tastings throughout cooking. At any rate, here’s a description of what I think about when I’m putting this all together.

First, bring enough water to completely cover the pasta to boil in a covered large saucepan – I use about 2-3 inches. When it’s boiling, uncover the pan, pour in the pasta, and reduce the heat to medium high. Stir the pasta, and taste it every few minutes once it seems to start to swell, waiting until it is cooked but still very firm. Once it reaches this point of being almost done, remove it from the heat and drain the water.

On very low heat, return the drained pasta to the pan, and add the butter and half and half – start with small amounts (about the minimum listed), and add more later, as a rule with all ingredients here. Stir the pasta as a creamy sauce will begin to form. Please note that butter usage is mostly dependent on the fluid used – milk (if it’s whole) can be used to decent effect if more butter is added, and heavy cream requires less butter on the whole.

Once there’s a visible sauce and it’s stirred into the pasta, raise the heat a bit, add the cheese, and stir it in. Most people seem to stock parmesan cheese, and that makes a fine alfredo, though I find it to be a little weak. Pecorino Romano is the cheese I use in place of Parmesan in most recipes that call for that cheese, as it’s a bit of a stronger, sharper flavor. However, using that alone doesn’t make for the best experience – recently, I’ve had both on hand, and found that blending them 50/50 makes for the best sauce.

At any rate, at this point, it’s just about adding ingredients and stirring until the sauce tastes right. Adding more liquid makes the sauce more fluid, as well as more covering. Too much makes it watery and soupy, though. Butter adds a richness, but too much of that makes the dish heavier than it already is, and a bit greasy. Cheese adds flavor and also thickness, and while a good strong flavor is necessary, getting too cheesy is unappetizing. In general, err on the light side – you can always add more, but it’s impossible to remove stuff.

At any rate, taste as you go, and once you feel it tastes good, it’s done! Don’t over think it (I’ve already done that, probably), just eat it and enjoy it.