Stupid question-if TRUE Alfredo sauce is just butter and paramesan, can’t you just melt some butter and add some cheese?
And not only was it easy, it turned out better than anything I’ve tried before! Yum!
I have plenty of leftovers, though, and the sauce has already turned to a “sheen” of butter, losing the white color. But I don’t mind, as long as it rewarms halfway well.
Not something I’ll have very often, but that’s probably for the best… 
Hmmm, Alfredo sauce, one of the true moments of bliss on Earth, and therefore one of the true horrible travesties when it’s done wrong.
In order to understand Alfredo you have to understand it’s components
It works under the theory that fat is good. Basically good Alfredo is milk fat, combined with milk fat, with some milk fat thrown in. ALthough I did read an article once that said good alfredo *is[/is] slightly more healthy then eating spoonfuls of lard. 
Sadly some people are afraid of the milk fat content, and think that a thin alfredo is good(much like some people think that a mushroom or egglant or tofu can replace meat and taste good). And therein lies much of the problem. Some people find a thin alfredo “perfect” and give it good reviews. People think that something they like can pass for good alfredo when it is the abominable ‘healthy’ alfredo shudder
Boiling or simmering works because even heavy cream has a sad proportion of water. Get rid of some of that nasty water, and concentrating the milk fat makes a thicker and more tasty sauce. Not draining the noodles perfectly dry, adds water and craps things up. Crappy manufactured parmsan adds nasty cheap oils that disrupt from the yummy milk fat.
But thicker is not better always. Some people put the noodles in the sauce to soon and the starches leaches off to act like a flour thickened sauce. Not good, not good at all. It looks like a real alfredo, but tastes like essence of glue. Which is why the noodles must be drained completely. If you attempt to reduce the sauce after noodle addition, you get starch, bad bad bad.
Melt butter, and saute any other ingredintsin the butter(but only ones that add flavor without mass, (fresh parsley is bad, it leaches green and makes a sauce that is not perfectly virginal white)don’t dilute the scrumputious milk fat(mushrooms and seafood add non-milk-fat mass, icky icky icky)) add the heavy cream and boil to get rid of some nasty water. Add real parmesan to thicken more. Combine with noodles and eat.
mmmmmmmmm… alfredo. 
3 CHEERS FOR LEAPER!!!
See, TOLD you it was easy.
And yeah, it doesn’t reheat well. The flip side of that is that it’s so easy you can make it in individual portions every single night if you need to.
This thread has been making me so hungry for alfredo sauce that I picked up two jars of it at the grocery store last night. Mmmm, mmm.
What?
I wish I had read this thread last Friday night. I winged an Alfredo sauce by combining a 1/2 stick of butter and a 1/4 cup of flour in a saucepan. Stirred it up a bit, then added 2% milk - it was all I had - and a large handful of good parmesan. Then I added drained canned mushrooms, and a handful of frozen broccoli/cauliflower/carrot mixture, and a few cooked shrimp. Then added my cooked fettucini to the whole thing—oh, and a good teaspoon of fresh cracked pepper, and a pinch of salt. It was very good! But I’ll eat anything…
That, by definition, is a Mornay sauce, not alfredo. Good, but not the same thing.
Okay, I (the unwitting instigator of this pit thread) tried to make alfredo sauce yesterday - the modified one that included the parmesan. I even made a special trip to the store of a solid block of parmesan. And cream. Already had the grater for the cheese. Let’s just say, just as some folks are not meant to be parents, some folks are just not cooks.
The first attempt came out really, really runny, prolly too much cream. The second attempt must have heated up too quickly and burned. Not badly, just more scorchy than I would have prefered it to taste.
At least I tried. Please, at the least, give me credit for that.
(And the point of my thread was ‘stuff I forgot I already have’ - normally, I have just one jar of 'fredo sauce in the house at any time. Funny, though, Athena arguing with an owl. Heh.)
It’s not too much cream. You simply didn’t reduce long enough. I just made some, and it took a bit longer than my first estimates. For one cup of 37% heavy whipping cream, it took about 10-12 minutes of boiling to reduce to the correct consistency. Keep whisking throughout. If you have a crappy pan or pot it will burn. That’s not your fault.
Good luck.
Oh I know, screechy! That’s why I started a pit thread, didn’t want to be rude and hijack your thread.
and roflmao… I didn’t think about the Athena-owl connection until you pointed it out! way funny!
This has to be one of the funniest thread titles I’ve seen in a long time.
A food snob in da UP? Eh, dat ain’t right. Somptin’s hinky wit dat, eh?
Much thanked. I usually hate when that happens, and I actually got some nice recipes and culinary info from this thread. Still can’t cook for a hill of beans, though. At least I didn’t scorch the pan and start a fire this time.
Saw the title, knew it had to be connected to my thread, saw the name and made the connection immediately, and giggled for several minutes. Still do, actually.
screech-owl - Like I’ve said, it isn’t impossible to learn how to cook. My mistakes are many and legendary (I managed to fuck up ramen once, and that’s supposed to be impossible), but I managed to figure out what I was doing after a while. Just realize you’re going to get it wrong sometimes and go from there.
Actually, there’s more than a few foodies in da UP. Basically, if you want something to eat besides pasties, steaks, and whitefish up here, you gotta cook it yourself.
Show of hands - who here has found themselves craving and/or preparing alfredo sauce recently? Me, for one (both craving and cooking. Mmm, heart attack…)
Besides, once in a while us heartlanders watch that Alton Brown fella. Of course we do it in between trips to the outhouse. It gives us sumpin’ to contemplate besides the tattered Sears send-'n-fetch catalog terlet paper.
Actually the whole ‘Merkin foodie thing is pretty great. I’ve become a fresh produce animal, and the wider availability of good “outside” foodstuffs has been a godsend. If nothing else it’s raised the bar for appreciating and making the most of great local resources.
I love good alfredo, and am very persnickety about it in restaurants. Gooey white sauces don’t cut it. Keep it honest or don’t bother: real cream, real butter, real Parmesan.
It’s horrify Hazen, but I love dinking around with the side stuff. Shrimp quickly sauteed with garlic; dusted with cajun spices and lashings of fresh lemon, etc. and tossed in: divine. Same goes with fresh asparagus, tender garden peas, whatever, w/ garlic/lemon butter. Or even faux crab, nudged into something finer w/ garlic-lemon butter. Or field mushrooms, w/ garlic butter. Any and all it migh conflict w/ the purists’ balance of taste–and the suave flavor of real Parmeasan is pretty compelling–but what the heck. Good eats is good eats.
Settling for less insults honest food.
Veb
cries
I was all ready to go home and make myself a little lemon chicken, maybe some teriyaki beef, something on the light foods section of my recipe list.
And now you’ve all got me craving a reeeeeeeally thick Alfredo sauce. With mushrooms sauteed in garlic and too much butter, and chicken added in…though that shrimp someone mentioned up a few posts is tempting too…
Damn you all!
Alfredo with fresh peas and a hint of garlic. Yum.
Would anyone please recommend a nice wine (any particular vineyards would be a help) to go with the alfredo sauce, and I could leave off the garlic - just soliciting opinions here. I am going to try the sauce again this weekend, and if it works, I’ll have a nice pairing. If it implodes again, at least I’ll have a nice wine to console the taste buds or kill the taste of the sauce.
Hey, watch it with the pancake references there;). I’m almost thirty years old and last night, I made the first near-perfect pancakes of my life. I always turn them too soon or the batter is too thick, or i end up splashing batter all over the pan (I’m planning to buy a griddle to put on the stove, or hoping we end up with one as a wedding gift). Seriously. Don’t make me try to actually make the MIX, too.
But my pancakes last night were good - golden brown on each side, perfectly shaped, and quite tasty - even mr. avabeth said they were the best ones I’ve ever made. I did get that little puffiness around the edges on the second side, but I haven’t yet figured out how to get rid of that.
Ava
Almost any wine will work. Really. Maybe I’d stay away from sweet whites, but other than that you can’t go wrong.
With the peas, I’d edge towards whites rather than reds, but that’s just my preference. J. Lohr Chardonney, or if you want to drop $20 or so, Caymus Conundrum.
If red’s more to your liking, I’m thinking Guigal Cotes du Rhone. Or maybe a peppery Chianti Classico.