4 Levels of Fettuccine Alfredo - Amateur to Food Scientist _ Epicurious

I'm Steven and I'm a level one chef .

I'm Julie and I'm a level two chef .

I'm Frank .

I've been a professional chef for 23 years .

My girlfriend wanted to go out to more Italian restaurants .

They were charging us $23 for fettuccini Alfredo .

And I was like , absolutely not .

I'll go and make my own fettuccini at home and now I have a happy relationship .

I make pasta a couple of times a week .

It reminds me of the summer that I spent in Cortina Pizzo .

I really like fettuccini Alfredo .

It doesn't take a lot of ingredients and everyone loves it .

I'm gonna make pasta dough and I'm gonna start with some double zero flour .

This is the grandma style pasta making no mixer required .

And then I'm gonna do three egg yolks keep mixing it until it's not really wet anymore .

And I'm gonna slowly gather in the flour from the sides .

I want this pasta to be fairly dry because if it's really wet , it's hard to handle when you roll it out .

If we roll it out at this point , it's gonna snap back because the proteins are so tense right now .

I'm gonna wrap it so it doesn't get a dry skin on it .

Pasta , gets a skin on it .

It's gonna be really hard to roll out and that's it .

That's how grandma would do it .

A nice , smooth firm dough .

It's pasta .

It's not rocket science .

Just do it .

I got my store bought fettuccini costing me 99 cents .

I like to use fresh pasta because it has a really nice consistency and soaks up the sauce .

Now that the water is boiling like my blood .

Once people criticize my fettuccini , please .

The store bought fettuccini in .

We're gonna add some salt .

Not too much .

Now , we're going to heavily salt .

This don't add too much salt in the beginning because it just throws off the whole dynamic and you just have really , really salty pasta .

Then you're going to find yourself at garden , spending $15.20 dollars on pasta when you could have just had it for five .

I have a nice old granny machine here .

I started out at the lowest setting and now all we're going to do is go down the numbers .

You don't want to rush this because if you jump through the numbers and you jump through the thicknesses , your pasta will kind of start to tear .

Now , what I'm to do is I'm gonna shave some fresh summer truffle , black summer truffle , but I have a mandolin .

This is extremely dangerous , but I want these shavings of truffle to be super , super paper thin and laminate it .

And then we're gonna have a nice kind of sandwich of the truffles and the pasta .

And I cut it in half because that's kind of the length of the fettuccini that I want for this .

Stack them and roll them fettuccini .

Some people think it's really thick .

Some people think it's really thin .

I'm just going with what I think is close to what is OK .

A couple of things , I like dry pasta but fresh pasta soaks in some sauces .

Fresh pasta only takes 2 to 3 minutes to cook the key to a good pasta .

You want the water to be moving , to move that pasta around a lot of boiling water more than you need .

Don't use a lot of water because we're not using cream .

We want the water to be really starchy because that'll help bind the sauce together .

Doesn't go to 11 .

I don't know the scientific facts behind this .

This is what I learned from my nana in Northern Italy , a wooden spoon doesn't let the pasta stick together if you want to let it sit in the water until it's a little bit hard .

Only cook it three quarters of the way just to touch undercook .

Try to get as much as you can out of the water without burning your face .

No fettuccini left behind .

So I don't mind some of that pasta water on there .

This is something that everyone throws away we're gonna use this as our sauce base .

So now we're gonna prepare the vegetables so it could be prepared for the fettuccini .

Later add a little bit of garlic broccoli , then our mushrooms .

So it can look pretty like myself .

Nobody wants salt less vegetables .

Paprika , black pepper .

I think I've put too much pepper .

It's like in my , this looks like a lot now .

But if you've cooked with spinach in the past , you know that this will go down very , very quickly .

Boom .

Originally , fettuccini Alfredo is pasta , which is pasta with butter .

So surprise , a whole wheel of cheese .

This is a close cousin of Parmesan .

What I'm gonna do is I'm going to add some of that pasta water that we see that nice starchy pasta water .

We're going to add the heavy cream .

Now , I told you no cream , but I didn't say anything about butter .

We're using a lot of butter .

I use a cultured butter has a little funk to it .

Place it into the pan .

So rather than dump a whole stick of butter in , we're going to cut it in so that we can make our sauce creamy and emulsify it .

They have two secret weapons .

This one's not so secret because it's cheese and I like it great .

Finally , because it's easier to make a nice creamy sauce .

So instead of grating the cheese , you're just scraping the cheese that you feel you're going to need .

I'm from the Caribbean .

We like to use nutmeg in a lot of different things .

This nutmeg comes from a tree outside my aunt's house in Mandeville , Jamaica .

I get them smuggled in and I like to use this little micro plain .

Look at that beautiful brown nutmeg bubble and meld those flavors together just about right .

You can see that my pasta is boiling .

Now , I'm gonna dump it right into my cheese and give it a good stir .

You can see it right away .

Right .

What happens ?

I start to get a beautiful creamy sauce .

This is what I'm talking about .

Coming to come .

As my mother used to say , we're gonna put our pasta in toss plate and dress .

We have reached our final stage where we will incorporate everything into one pan and it will be ready for us to plate .

I brought a bottle of sauce from the store just in case I messed it up .

OK ?

Anybody who tells you not to use your hands when you're cooking , you gotta get your hands in the food , man .

Come on .

You wanna have a good balance between pasta and sauce .

I would say pasta 45 I would say sauce 55 .

That goes 100 .

That sounds right .

I wish you could smell this at home .

Creeping on level two territory right now .

The old spoon in the pot trick seems to have worked and now we're ready to plate .

I like to put the Parmesan at the bottom because later on I'll mix the pasta with the parmesan .

Nothing gets left behind .

I have this beautiful creamy sauce without any cream .

It's just butter pasta , water and cheese .

Now , a couple of things you're gonna do a little bit more of the Jamaican Secret Weapon nutmeg .

A nice helping of truffles .

The thinner , the better on these .

You don't want them to be too thick .

I love Parmesan .

Every time I go to the restaurants , I give the person like carpal tunnel .

They like say when I never say when fresh crab pepper always that stuff that sits on the shelf that's ground up already is dead .

This is kind of still alive .

It has a nice kind of sharpness to it .

I like a little bit of parsley to make the plate look nice .

And here is my fettuccini Alfredo , voila fettuccini Alfredo .

You want to serve it right away .

Once the warmth hits the truffles , they're going to give off this beautiful truffle aroma .

This looks so good .

I almost don't wanna try it right .

Here we go .

Mm That's really good .

Delicious .

Should talk with my mouth because it's very tasty .

Or any time I get a request to go out , I will cook this and you can add as much Parmesan without the judgment of restaurants .

I think I hit it out of the park .

This is a great recipe for a dinner party .

Everybody loves cheese .

It looks pretty because you saw how easy it was .

You got a dinner party man , fettuccini Alfredo .

The way it's meant to be .

I would serve fettuccini Alfredo during the holidays .

It's kind of a labor of love and especially if you're gonna put truffles on it .

You gotta really like these people .

OK .

Go away .

I'm gonna eat .

Now we saw three different chefs combine three different sauces and pastas to make their own fettuccini Alfredo Steven , you store bought dried pasta .

Julie used store bought fresh pasta and Frank crafted homemade pasta store bought dry pasta contains only two ingredients , flour and water .

Julie's store bought fresh pasta and Frank's homemade pasta are both similar to dry pasta but also contain eggs .

Pasta is composed of a network of proteins holding together starch molecules .

The two essential chemical compounds in pasta , carbohydrates and proteins vary in the ratio in fresh and dried pasta .

Steven's pasta has considerably more starch than Julie and Frank's pasta .

His requires a longer cooking time to completely hydrate the starch molecules keep it separated because pasta like good friends likes to stick together .

The eggs in Julie and Frank's fresh pasta , increase the overall protein content requiring a shorter cook time to completely hydrate the starch molecules and cook the fettuccini Alfredo sauce is distinguishable by its velvety and creamy mouth feel and overall richness .

The creaminess can be accomplished by including milk fat or starches .

The sauce is an emulsion .

A combination of typically un mixable liquids into one homogenous sauce .

Stephen made an American style Alfredo sauce by combining heavy cream butter and cheese to form a silky mixture .

Julie and Frank made an style Alfredo sauce by emulsifying butter with pasta water and adding cheese to create a thickened sauce .

This pasta water , this is key to this sauce .

The butter and cream in Stephen's sauce both contain a high quantity of milk fat .

The flavor compounds locked into the milk fat , particularly lac tones and sulfurous compounds will provide a deep buttery flavor to Stephen's sauce .

Milk fat also contains phospha lipids .

Phospho lipids are ahoy both water loving and fat , loving and will help keep Stephen's sauce completely emulsified to account for the less milk fat .

Julie and Frank used starchy pasta water to help thicken the Alfredo sauce .

Julie made her sauce by heating pasta water in a pan and slowly whisking in butter to emulsify or bring together the water and butter mixture into one homogenous mixture .

Kind of good Frank combined hot pasta water and melted butter to create an emulsified sauce .

He then tossed the pasta and added the saucy fettuccini mixture into a carved out wheel of grana Padano .

The starch molecules in the pasta water will swell and thicken .

Frank and Julie's sauce creating a richness without the addition of cream .

They also included butter which dispersed throughout the pasta water , creating an even textured and smooth sauce and it doesn't work well unless you get it all over yourself .

OK ?

You got to get it everywhere .

All of our chefs toss their pasta in the sauce before plating the dish .

The residual starches on the outside of the cooked pasta will allow the sauce to cling to the outside and thoroughly coat the fettuccini .

Each chef crafted a distinct flavor profile for their sauce .

Stephen added parmesan and garlic and mixed in mushrooms , spinach and broccoli .

The garlic is like creeping into my nose but it's a good the dry store bought pasta will hold its own against the heaviness and rich flavor in the sauce .

Parsley for garnish provides an earthy flavor and classic appearance to the dish .

Julie used only a few ingredients to flavor her sauce .

Parmesan nutmeg and parsley .

The combination of parmesan and nutmeg will provide a subtle nutty flavor perfectly suited for the tender fresh pasta .

Frank used cultured butter , pepper and grana Padano cheese to deepen the flavor of his Alfredo sauce .

He tossed the pasta inside a wheel of grana Padano cheese before plating the hot pasta melted the walls of the cheese wheel heightening the cheesy flavor and texture .

In Frank's dish , cultured butter has been made with bacterial cultures .

The bacteria converts some of the sugars into lactic acid which produces die a butter flavor compound in butyric acid , a tanky flavored fatty acid paired with salty grana Padano cheese and woody truffles .

Frank's dish has a distinct flavor profile .

Using that cultured butter gives it .

That little sharpness is delicious every day beats the creamy sauce .

Toss some of these tips into your next pasta night for a rich and delicious fettuccini alfredo .