THE ORIGINAL FETTUCINE ALFREDO
Be sure to access the recipe for Fettuccine Alfredo after the brief story.
Wouldn’t it be grand if a recipe were named after you? Beats a tombstone, I take it.
The “Alfredo” in fettuccine Alfredo, likely America’s most favored non-red-sauce Italian noodle preparation, was a Roman chef named Alfredo Di Lelio.
The legend goes that Di Lelio created the dish of fettuccine, butter and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to help strengthen and soothe his wife during the labor of delivering their first-born, Armando (if the legend dates to 1907, as one does), or convalesce from the birthing (if the legend dates to 1908, as does another).
Whatever the year of origin, Di Lelio later popularized the same recipe at his Roman restaurant which was located (and still is) along the Via della Scrofa. He never listed it on the menu as “Fettuccine Alfredo,” but instead “pasta al triplo burro” (fettuccine with triple the amount of butter), to this day its proper Italian culinary name. (If you ask for fettuccine Alfredo in Rome, apart from Alfredo’s namesake restaurant, they’ll both look askance at you and, anyway, give you a portion of pasta al triplo burro.)
The name “Fettuccine Alfredo”—and, more important, the cream used in it—came to and into the recipe when it moved to the United States in the 1930s. In Italian cooking, even simple “fettuccine al burro e formaggio” (pasta with butter and cheese, usually a children’s dish) never includes cream. We Yanks riched it up.
Any “cream” comes to the original fettuccine Alfredo from its preparation, which I want to teach you. With the recipe here, method is key. Pay close attention to the details in the directions and you’ll come out with a creamy fettuccine Alfredo as Di Lelio made it.
In Italian, “fettuccine” is derived from and a diminutive of the word for “ribbon”—”fetta”—and means “little ribbons.” Photo from Marcus Spiske on unsplash.
RECIPE: Fettuccine al triplo burro (Fettuccine with triple the amount of butter)
This is the original recipe for what we call “Fettuccine Alfredo.” (See the story.) Serves up to 4, depending on portion size.
Ingredients
1 pound fettuccine pasta, egg-based if possible
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (about 1/4 pound chunk, not grated)
Freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Prepare ahead all utensils, serving ware and ingredients.
Grate the cheese on the finest holes of a box grater or using a microplane (preferred). The cheese must be as light and fluffy as possible. Place the butter at the bottom of a metal or thick ceramic bowl that can be placed on a warmed heat diffuser or in a slow (180 degree) oven. Also, ready the serving plates that will be warmed momentarily in the same manner.
Melt the butter, just, but do not let it bubble. Keep it handy. Warm the serving plates as with the butter in its bowl (that is, on a warmed heat diffuser or in a slow [180 degree] oven.)
Cook the pasta in plenty of well-salted boiling water. If it is dried, follow the package directions; if freshly made, this will take only a few minutes. A couple of minutes before the pasta is al dente, pull off 2 ladles’ worth of pasta water, adding 3 tablespoons of the water to the melted butter. Stir or whisk the butter and water vigorously and well, until the mix emulsifies into a “cream.” Keep it warm.
When the pasta is just al dente, pull it out of the water using tongs, letting excess water drip back into the pasta pot, and place it into the butter emulsion. With your hand, sprinkle 3/4 of the cheese over the hot pasta and, again using tongs, repeatedly pull up the fettuccine, folding the cheese and butter back into the cooked pasta, creating even more “cream.” Do this over a warm spot such as a heat diffuser or a turned-off burner.
Use as much of the reserved pasta cooking water, tad by tad, to aid this process. You want a sauce neither dryish nor too wet, but creamy and shiny and rich.
Serve the fettuccine onto the warmed plates, scattering more cheese over each serving as well as liberal grindings of black pepper.