Interesting Note about the spelling of Fettuccine: This is spelled many different ways by many, even nice restaurants will spell this wrong in an effort to make it easy for English speaking people to pronounce it. The most common spelling variations of this classic Italian dish are: Fettuccine / Fettuccini / Fettucine. This might be helpful. Pulled it off of a forum discussion about this subject: "As you can see in the WR dictionary, it's fettuccine (Two t's and two c'c). That's actually the plural of fettuccina, which as a feminine noun becomes plural by changing the "a" to an "e."" There is also a pretty good food discussion about this subject as well on ChefTalk and Authenticity of food and why it matters, the case of the Italian cuisine. OK, well I hope that clears up the spelling of Fettuccine issue. :-) So the correct spelling of this special Italian dish is Fettuccine... Capish? Now onto the recipe!.
OK, are you ready? Here we go....
Read on for Fettuccine Alfredo Recipe instructions...
Get a large pot of water boiling for the Fettuccine noodles. Make sure you have a lot of water for the pasta. For good pasta you want to have a lot of water for the noodles to swim in while cooking. You do this first because for the time it will take you to heat up a large pot of water to boiling and cook the noodles will be about the same amount of time it takes you to make the Alfredo Sauce.
While the pot of water is heating up.... Pour 1 cup of heavy cream into nice large non-stick frying pan. Turn the heat onto medium low. You are going to want to cooking this slowly. Simmering at first. Some people like to melt the butter first and then add the cream. I find the Alfredo sauce comes out much creamier and thicker if you heat up the cream first and then melt the butter.
Let the heavy cream get nice and warm to where there is just a tiny bit of steam coming off of it but not boiling.
Add in the 6 Tbs. of "real" butter. Slowly let the butter melt into the cream. Stir frequently while you are letting the butter melt. Again, the cream should not be boiling but should be hot enough to melt the butter. Keep stirring!
Check... Is the water in the large pot boiling yet? If so add the Fettuccine noodles and set the timer to 11 minutes. The pasta is usually ready between 10 - 12 minutes. You will have to taste and see.
Keep stirring the cream and butter until the butter has completely mixed into the cream. Now you can turn up the heat to medium to were the cream is just barely boiling, just a few bubbles here and there. Almost boiling. Keep stirring!
Add in the fresh pepper, stir. Then add in 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese. At this point your heat should be on medium and the sauce should be boiling just a little bit. You are going to be stirring this for a while now until all the cheese has melted into the sauce and you have a nice thick creamy sauce with all ingredients blended together. Keep heating this until all the Parmesan cheese has completely melted into the Alfredo sauce. It's going to take a while so be patient. You might be stirring this on low heat for about 10 minutes. Just be sure to not over cook the sauce. If you see it is starting to get too thick turn off the heat.
At this point your noodles should be cooked. Drain the noodles well in a strainer. Make sure you get as much water out of the noodles as possible. One thing I like to do is, instead of just pouring the noodles into a bowl from the strainer which still might have some water in it. I use a pasta spoon also called a pasta server. It's the large spoon with the teeth. There is a good photo here: Pasta Server. This large spoon with teeth also has slots in the bottom of the spoon. So when you scoop out the pasta it will allow even more water to drain out. So what you want to do is instead of just pouring out the noodles from the strainer to the bowl, scoop out the noodles a little bit at a time from the strainer to the bowl using the pasta server and allow any extra water to drain before you place the pasta in the bowl.
Once you have all the noodles added to a large bowl you are now going to mix in the Alfredo sauce. Slowly pour the sauce which should still be very warm from the frying pan into the noodles. Don't pour all of it in. Start with about 3/4 of the sauce. Now add in the fresh chopped parsley. Mix everything well. Then add in a little bit more pepper (to taste, I like a lot), then also add some more Parmesan cheese, about 1/4 cup more and mix it will up well. Now check the consistency of the sauce and noodles all mixed together. If it is not too creamy and there is no extra sauce puddling on the bottom of the bowl you can add the rest of the Alfredo sauce to the bowl. Then mix some more.
Now it is ready to serve. You want to plan this out well. When you make Fettuccine it has to be served immediately after you have mixed it and everything is hot. This is extremely important. Cold Fettuccine is just not good and it cools off fast. So make everything else you are going to make first and have everything ready. It takes about 10 minutes to get the water boiling for the noodles and another 10 - 12 minutes to cook the noodles and then you mix everything and your done. So plan accordingly. I warned you, if you serve cold Fettuccine Alfredo to your guests it's not my fault!
I like to server this with a nice Italian Salad, Garlic Bread and Chicken Cutlets as you can see in the photos I have for this recipe. EnJoY!
That's it! You're done..... Easy as Pie!
Some helpful links for learning more about Fettuccine Alfredo
This is very interesting. Google's food time line for Fettuccine Alfredo
There are many variations of Fettuccine Alfredo. 100's of ways you can make this dish. What I have put in detail above is how my grandmother made it and how I ate it growing up so to me this is the correct and only way to make it :-) However, you can experiment and try all the many ways to make this lovely Italian dish! Just google this phrase here "fettucini alfredo recipe variations" and explore the many possibilities! Have fun!
You can find many Fettuccini recipe variations on she CookEatShare site!
