This afternoon, between other activities, I have been perusing recipes for Pasta Alfredo, and wondering just how they differ from your Pasta e Pepe.
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What is/was for dinner?
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Alfredo typically uses heavy cream to make the sauce.
Cacio e pepe is just water, pecorino, and pepper in the sauce.
It's why if you see a cacio e pepe or carbonara on the menu in a restaurant using cream, RUN! Or at least it is an Americanized recipe. Not an authentic Italian recipe.
Thank you.
Yes, I hear you.
And yes, I have read about the (excessive, or sometimes, quite unnecessary) use of cream in some of these Amercanised recipes.
I don't have an issue with cream in cooking, (some dishes, including, for that matter, some pasta dishes, such as pasta and blue cheese sauce - almost demand it) but it should complement, support, rather than be a clear substitute for, butter, or pasta cooking broth, or Parmigiano Reggiano (or Pecorino Romano).
Actually, I've been reading (and watching) online recipes for the authentic (genuine) Italian version of Pasta Alfredo, and they seem to stress the use of very few ingredients, namely, pasta, pasta cooking broth, butter (lots) plus (freshly grated) Parmigiano Reggiano (also in very generous quantities) and, perhaps, also (freshly grated) Pecorino Romano.
In any case, when preparing Carbonara, I use egg yolks, that glorious starchy pasta cooking broth, (freshly) grated Pecorino Romano, and forego cream.
I don't have issue with cream either. One of my favorite sauces for filet mignon if I feel like the effort in making it is a red wine sauce that I use heavy cream in.
Guess I am a purist in that if it is an Italian dish, use the authentic Italian recipe. It's why I love Cacio e Pepe so much. It's so simple and it requires good ingredients to make it so good. My biggest gripe is a cacio e pepe in the US uses too much pepper which I suspect is hiding a bland cheese used or the cheese doesn't have any flavor( and doesn't try to use pepper to mask it). The flavor in that dish comes from the cheese and the pepper compliments it.
Same with carbonara. Recipes in the US use cream in it to make it creamy like a carbonara should be. But it's the eggs that provide that creaminess in a good recipe! Also use the fat rendered out of the guanciale.
Amen to that.
And completely agree.
A creamy pepper sauce with steak, (or, a blue cheese sauce) - or, served with mushrooms, for, mushrooms, garlic and cream all go well together - are all dishes where cream is necessary.
And, also, potatoes dauphinoise; cream and garlic are absolutely necessary with this dish.
I hear you, and am in agreement with you, to a considerable extent.
Many of the classic dishes - especially if they are deceptively simple - require excellent quality ingredients.
Agree, but that point about bland cheese in the US - and pepper used excessively in order to mask this very blandness - hadn't occurred to me.
The eggs, and rendered fat from the guanciale, plus the starchy goodness of the pasta cooking broth all combine to create that sense of creaminess.
Anyway, this evening, I treated myself to Pasta Alfredo: The ingredients used were pasta, that gloriously good starchy pasta cooking broth, along with an exceptionally generous hand with both butter and Parmigiano Reggiano, plus some Pecorino Romano, both grated by me.
Plus, freshly ground black pepper, which may offend the purists, mainly because I like the heat, rather than attempting to disguise inferior quality products (such as bland cheese).
A green salad, lamb's lettuce and mixed greens dressed with my homemade dressing (olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, Dijon mustard, and a heaped teaspoon of local honey) accompanied the pasta dish.
We have been in the month of Ramadan since March 1st. We have been fasting for 23 days. I broke my 23rd fast last night at iftar. I ate 2 giant Adana kebabs with the tension of that hunger
I hope that you enjoyed the Adana kebabs and the iftar feast.
Oxtail Rendang Curry. I smoked the oxtail sections with post oak to get some color/smoke on them, then into a slow cooker with about 20 ingredients for 12 hours (kitchen smelled amazing this morning). I pulled out the tails and let them cool while I degreased the sauce and reduced it to thicken. Pulled the meat off the bones/fat (it was falling apart):
Put the meat back into the sauce to reheat, then served over rice with Fresno chile, cilantro and a steamed bokchoy.
Will be making this again.
Put the meat back into the sauce to reheat, then served over rice with Fresno chile, cilantro and a steamed bokchoy.
Will be making this again.
I want to put a fork through the screen, that looks sooooo good.
That looks absolutely delicious.
I must admit that this is the sort of dish that I would love to try to prepare, if you cared to share the recipe with us.
My sentiments, exactly.
Yesterday, I craved curry, thus, dinner took the form of curry.
Today is the second day of Ramadan. As a Muslim, our Ramadan means holiday and I closed my shop yesterday. I will open the shop on Thursday. Since the shop was closed and we had no work, we decided to go to Antep. I woke up at 6 am and set off from Adana towards Gaziantep. Antep is a big city like Adana. The population of Adana is 3 million, the population of Antep is 2 million. We arrived at around 9. I had breakfast there. I walked around. It is now 4 pm and I came to have dinner.
I started my meal with Beyran. It is made from sheep neck and sheep cheek. The other ingredients that make up the soup are rice, garlic, butter, oil, water, salt, pepper sauce, black pepper and Aleppo chili pepper. While you pay hundreds of dollars for collagen, we drank collagen spoonfuls for 10 dollars. Since I have been drinking it since I was a child, there are no wrinkles, aging or acne on my skin. If you saw it, you would think I was 20 years young. But I am 38 years old. Beyran:
Our soup is finished. Let's move on to the main course. Our dish is küsleme. It is a type of kebab. It is prepared on a barbecue like Adana kebab. Küsleme kebab is a special type of kebab made using küsleme meat. Also known as lamb tenderloin, küsleme is a type of meat that can be cut into only two pieces from a lamb, each about two fingers thick, 17-18 cm long and weighing 150-200 grams. We had onion salad, other salads, and raw meatballs. We are full now. If I were alone, I would have drove for 3 more hours and come to Adana at night. But since I have a little cat, I have to go now. Our stomachs are full, our backs are strong. May my path be clear. 🙂
Küşleme:
I started my meal with Beyran. It is made from sheep neck and sheep cheek. The other ingredients that make up the soup are rice, garlic, butter, oil, water, salt, pepper sauce, black pepper and Aleppo chili pepper. While you pay hundreds of dollars for collagen, we drank collagen spoonfuls for 10 dollars. Since I have been drinking it since I was a child, there are no wrinkles, aging or acne on my skin. If you saw it, you would think I was 20 years young. But I am 38 years old. Beyran:
Our soup is finished. Let's move on to the main course. Our dish is küsleme. It is a type of kebab. It is prepared on a barbecue like Adana kebab. Küsleme kebab is a special type of kebab made using küsleme meat. Also known as lamb tenderloin, küsleme is a type of meat that can be cut into only two pieces from a lamb, each about two fingers thick, 17-18 cm long and weighing 150-200 grams. We had onion salad, other salads, and raw meatballs. We are full now. If I were alone, I would have drove for 3 more hours and come to Adana at night. But since I have a little cat, I have to go now. Our stomachs are full, our backs are strong. May my path be clear. 🙂
Küşleme:
That soup looks mouth-watering, as indeed, does the salad.
My recollection is that the cuisine in Turkey is incredible - I recall that amazing (and utterly delicious) lentil soup with particular warmth.
Enjoy your meal.
Thanks. Our cuisine is very nice. There is Anatolian origin food, Caucasian origin food, Siberian origin food, Arabic origin food and most importantly as a Turk, I think there are Turkic dishes. Apart from that. Since they are all healthy, there are not many obese people in the country. Those who are obese are either obese because of dough or beer. If you come to Türkiye one day, visit all 81 of the 81 cities and you will find very different and wonderful dishes. I strongly recommend Tantuni, Alexander Kebab and Kayseri Yağlama
My parents loved Turkey, the history, the climate, the cuisine - holidaying there on several occasions, and travelling fairly extensively around the country.
My own visits have been brief, and fleeting - usually overnighting - but heading into the Old Town of Istanbul to dine, explore, unwind - while transiting to and from other places - but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and greatly enjoyed - and savoured - the cuisine.
Spent three days in Ankara on a TDY and I loved the food. Wish I could remember the name of one dish, was a toasted loaf that was drenched in melted butter, piled with shaved grilled lamb, and topped with a delicious red sauce. Easily in the Top 5 meals I've ever had.
I hope you will come again. But this time, come to the south of the country. Antalya, Mersin, Adana, Antakya, Antep, Urfa, Mardin. There are many places to visit. The tomb of the prophets Abraham and Job is in Urfa. I remember going to the tomb of the prophet Job when I was a child. I drank water from the cave where he was born. I had a little problem with my body at that time. He took it away. Turkey is not just Istanbul and Antalya. There are 79 other cities besides these two. When you arrive, travel east from Mersin
As do I.
If memory serves, my parents (who travelled on a number of holidays to different places in Turkey) spent some time in Antalya, - which they both loved; I recall my mother enthusing about Ephesus as well.
And I am fairly certain that they also spent some time in Antakya (which my father really liked).
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Pasta, peas, and pancetta (actually, guanciale) comprised dinner tonight.
This dish was started off with a very finely diced onion, which was sautéed until soft in olive oil and a generous quantity of butter in an exceedingly good, Italian heavy-bottomed, stainless steel, sauté pan (manufactured by Lagostina, a pan that I have had for just over a quarter of a century, as I purchased it in 1998).
Then, the finely diced guanciale was added, and sautéed until soft, whereupon the (defrosted frozen) peas, - comprising half a Le Creuset mug, along with some (six, in fact) very finely sliced - almost paper thin - cloves of garlic, were also added to the sauté pan, and gently sautéed until soft.
Earlier, I had grated some Pecorino Romano, as well as some Parmigiano Reggiano (I had also, unusually enough, done all of my other prep - chopping and finely dicing and slicing) in advance, so that everything was already laid out in small elegant bowls, ready for whenever I wished to commence cooking.
While the sauté pan was busy doing what a good sauté pan does, in a different saucepan (Le Mauviel, copper, French), water (to which a stock cube had been added) was put on the boil for pasta, and also, as a source of that glorious starchy pasta stock, or broth.
The pasta was cooked (fettuccine, this evening), and, when almost cooked, was removed (tongs the means of transport) to the sauté pan, where it was mixed, stirred, until well blended with the guanciale, onion, garlic and peas, whereupon freshly ground black pepper (in generous quantities) was also added.
Next, several generous ladles of that glorious starchy pasta broth were added to the sauté pan, and stirred through, which was when the grated cheese found its way to the pan, where it was slowly added, along with a few more ladles of starchy pasta cooking liquid, the lot stirred through.
And then, dinner was served (with proper crockery, cutlery, glassware, table mats, table cloths, coasters......)
Delicious, though I do say so, myself.
This dish was started off with a very finely diced onion, which was sautéed until soft in olive oil and a generous quantity of butter in an exceedingly good, Italian heavy-bottomed, stainless steel, sauté pan (manufactured by Lagostina, a pan that I have had for just over a quarter of a century, as I purchased it in 1998).
Then, the finely diced guanciale was added, and sautéed until soft, whereupon the (defrosted frozen) peas, - comprising half a Le Creuset mug, along with some (six, in fact) very finely sliced - almost paper thin - cloves of garlic, were also added to the sauté pan, and gently sautéed until soft.
Earlier, I had grated some Pecorino Romano, as well as some Parmigiano Reggiano (I had also, unusually enough, done all of my other prep - chopping and finely dicing and slicing) in advance, so that everything was already laid out in small elegant bowls, ready for whenever I wished to commence cooking.
While the sauté pan was busy doing what a good sauté pan does, in a different saucepan (Le Mauviel, copper, French), water (to which a stock cube had been added) was put on the boil for pasta, and also, as a source of that glorious starchy pasta stock, or broth.
The pasta was cooked (fettuccine, this evening), and, when almost cooked, was removed (tongs the means of transport) to the sauté pan, where it was mixed, stirred, until well blended with the guanciale, onion, garlic and peas, whereupon freshly ground black pepper (in generous quantities) was also added.
Next, several generous ladles of that glorious starchy pasta broth were added to the sauté pan, and stirred through, which was when the grated cheese found its way to the pan, where it was slowly added, along with a few more ladles of starchy pasta cooking liquid, the lot stirred through.
And then, dinner was served (with proper crockery, cutlery, glassware, table mats, table cloths, coasters......)
Delicious, though I do say so, myself.
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Birthday treat, seafood platter with oysters fine de claire nº4, gambas, shrimps, langoustines and a lobster to share. Served with an amazing Côte de Beaune 2019 from Bouchard Père & fils.
And for the final, Profitéroles!!!
And for the final, Profitéroles!!!
Happy birthday.
That entire repast looks absolutely amazing; and, I must confess that I am more than partial to the idea of Cöte de Beaune accompanying such a lovely selection of shellfish. Simply divine.