Fettuccine Alfredo.... part 2

I was disappointed in the results of my first Fettuccine Alfredo attempt so I went searching for a new recipe. I searched online (how did people search for recipes before the internet? Oh yeah, recipe books. How quaint). I found a recipe called "Fettuccine Alfredo - the real thing". Well, if it's the "real thing" then it's gotta be good stuff, right? Read on to find out ;)


These are the main ingredients. Fettuccine noodles (okay, they're actually linguine because Catelli doesn't make whole wheat fettuccine - weird!), garlic, butter, cream cheese, salt, pepper, heavy cream, and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

A word about Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. That little triangle you see in the picture above was $15 at Safeway. Real Parmesan cheese (not the stuff in a can but a triangle like the one above) is about $13 at Safeway. They are similar in taste and texture but I personally prefer the Parmesan. If you wanted to substitute Parmesan and save yourself $2 I think the taste & texture would be virtually identical.

Also, hard cheeses like these are insanely easy to grate using the grater attachment on a KitchenAid mixer. After hand-grating the last batch I realized how foolish that was and went back to my KitchenAid mixer for this round. Who wants to burn extra calories anyways? ;)

So the cooking process went like this.... lightly sautee the garlic in the butter, add the cream and bring to a simmer, add the cheeses and salt & pepper and stir until melted. Serve over cooked fettuccine. It was incredibly simple.

The end result looked like this....

I topped it with some chives and a little extra grated Parmesan.... and the pasta gods rejoiced! This really was very good alfredo sauce. It was a little runny (more about that in a second) but the taste was truly delightful. This one is highly recommended. We refrigerated the leftover sauce and microwaved it the next day for lunch and it was just as good the second time around.

What would I change?

1. The recipe doesn't specify so I cooked the noodles and sauce at the same time. However, the noodles cooked much faster than the sauce so I had to serve the sauce as soon as the cheese melted or risk the noodles getting cold. It would have been preferable to let it simmer for a while and reduce down to a thicker consistency. When (not if) I make this again, I will make the sauce fully and let it simmer while I cook the noodles.
2. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of heavy cream. This is a little excessive. I would reduce it to 2 cups, maybe less, and top off with water as it's quite rich. Alternately I might try using half n half mixture instead of heavy cream. Of course this probably won't help the runniness situation addressed in #1 so I'd make sure the sauce is reduced to the desired thickness well before cooking the noodles.
   

That's it, no other changes to make. Here is a link to the original recipe if you'd like to try it yourself.... Fettuccine Alfredo - The real thing