Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

Chiara (in Italian): - You know, the story of fettuccine Alfredo usually starts in Rome, where there are two restaurants and they prepare a cheese and butter-laden version of this dish, mostly for tourists and celebrities.

But on a recent trip to Italy, we're taught that the true origins of the dish actually go back to something very simple.

It's called pancia sconvolta, made by mothers for their sick kids.

So today at Milk Street, we make the lighter, more authentic fettuccine Alfredo.

Plus, we demonstrate a lemon garlic fettuccine from Amalfi, and then our favorite recipe for chocolate biscotti.

Please stay tuned.

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(speaking Italian) (laughing) (continues stirring) Okay.

- Fettucine Alfredo is really my favorite recipe of all time.

I love the origin story.

I love what it is, I love what it's not.

And I also love the fact that it has two great techniques you can use in lots of different pasta recipes.

So it's not the recipe you find at those two restaurants in Rome.

Those have tons of butter and tons of cheese.

They're unctuous.

They really overdo it.

This is a recipe that goes back hundreds of years in Italy.

It's what mothers make for their kids when they have a tummy ache.

And it does have pasta with butter and cheese, but it's a little bit leaner, more digestible, and actually a fabulous recipe.

So we are going to start with butter.

You know, it's not just a couple tablespoons, it's a stick of butter.

And you want to put pieces at the bottom and around the bowl that you're going to toss the pasta in.

And you want the butter to be very soft, because when that hot pasta hits it, and the hot water of the cooking water, it's going to want to emulsify and start to create a sauce.

And you want a pretty good sized bowl, too, because you're going to be tossing this pasta quite a lot.

The second thing is, you really want a fairly high fat butter.

Very often in this country, brands of butter might be 81% butterfat, something like that.

Some of the European brands are more 85% or 86%.

It does make a difference.

So you do want to go out and get a higher butterfat content brand.

So we have the butter sitting there.

Now we have the parmesan.

You obviously want the real thing because it's so important to the flavor.

This is six ounces of parmesan, and we're just going to cut that into some chunks, and we're going to use about two-thirds of it right in the sauce.

Now we're going to pulse this.

You want it fairly fine, because what's going to happen is we toss that cooked pasta with the butter and the cheese.

You don't want that cheese to melt.

So that's the cheese, it's finely ground, and that'll be fine enough so it actually melts and emulsifies into the sauce.

So we're going to use a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt.

Here is the first part of the technique that I think is so important.

We're cooking two nine-ounce packages of fettuccine in only two quarts of water; eight cups of water.

The reason is that the starches given off by that fresh pasta is going to be concentrated because there's half as much water as you normally would use.

And that starch in that cooking liquid is going to be really important to emulsifying the sauce.

In essence, we're building a sauce from the cooking water.

So let's drop the pasta.

And fresh pasta, as you know, cooks in just two or three minutes.

You want to watch it pretty carefully.

That's why you want to have the butter ready and the cheese ready to go.

Okay, now we're going to turn off the heat, and we're going to add the pasta.

But what we're going to do is add it along with some of the water comes with it.

We're not going to drain it because we want some of that pasta water in the bowl to help melt the butter.

Now we start tossing the pasta.

Let me add a little bit of water to it.

So the second part of this, the technique, besides using less water, which is starchy is, and we watched when we cooked at home, what she did was to toss for quite a long time.

It's that tossing which helps to build the sauce and emulsify the sauce.

Normally, at home, most of us would toss pasta with sauce for maybe ten seconds.

She actually tossed it for two or three minutes.

The butter is now melted.

It started to emulsify and become a sauce.

Now we're going to start adding the cheese.

And we should have about a cup and a half of grated cheese right now.

I'm going to start adding it about a cup of it in a third cup increment.

And you're also going to want to start adding a little bit more pasta water just to create a sauce.

Although we have six ounces of cheese and a stick of butter, that's way less than you'll find at those restaurants in Rome.

So a little more of the water.

Now it's really starting to come together.

Okay, now we're going to let it sit for another two minutes.

Just have to wait two minutes.

We'll check the texture, we might add a little more water, and then we're good to go.

So this is the Italian pasta twirling trick.

(chuckling): We'll see how it works.

We use a large ladle.

Worked pretty well.

Look at that.

So there's a little trick for plating the pasta and a little bit of cheese on top.

So let me take a taste.

Even though my stomach's fine.

Mm...

It's so good and it's light.

It's not heavy like a fettuccine Alfredo at one of those Roman restaurants.

So that's our recipe for fettuccini Alfredo.

The real recipe that goes back hundreds of years: cheese, butter, pasta, and salt made quickly, not too much cooking water, and toss for a couple of minutes to really emulsify the sauce.

It's delicious, and actually, it tastes light as well.

- Every now and then, you come across those recipes that kind of stay with you for the rest of your life.

From the moment you came across it, you keep making it.

And this is one of those recipes.

My daughters have me all figured out.

Every year around the holidays, about a month in advance, they start saying, "Oh, Mom, "we're so looking forward to those biscotti you make.

We can't wait to have them."

Of course, then I don't have an option but to make them.

- Smart kids.

- Every year.

Yeah.

We were inspired by a recipe from Maida Heatter from her book, The Best Dessert Book Ever, published in the '70s.

- A modest title, we should add.

- Modest.

So I've made this recipe for about 30 years and have made little changes over the years, but have kept it mostly the same in terms of technique.

- Okay.

- So we'll start by mixing the dry ingredients.

We have the all-purpose flour here.

We'll add the sugar.

We're adding cocoa powder here.

Cocoa powder is what makes the biscotti chocolate biscotti.

But we're also going to add bittersweet chocolate.

So we have a little bit of salt in there, a little bit of baking soda, and this is instant espresso powder.

- Espresso powder.

- Yeah.

And as you know, it doesn't make the biscotti taste like coffee.

There's very little here, but what this does is boost the chocolate flavor.

Kind of gives it... rounds out the edge of it.

Okay, good.

And if you, sir, wouldn't mind chopping that eight ounces of bittersweet chocolate over there.

We would like half of it in large chunks.

- Why did I ask?

Great.

(Bianca laughs) - And half of it into quarter-inch pieces.

I knew there would be an answer like that, okay.

- Perfect.

Look at that.

Now, this is a big chunk of chocolate.

This is a... we bought it in bulk, but you can get chocolate bars, the same thing.

Just look for a really good quality chocolate bar that you like eating, and that's the one to use.

You want to avoid chocolate chips in this recipe because those have additives in them that help them hold their shape together.

And we want a nice, meltable chocolate.

This is in Maida Heatter's recipe as well that I thought was just brilliant.

She takes this cocoa-infused dry mixture and then puts more bittersweet chocolate in it and grinds it together.

So you're actually infusing the dough with that pure bittersweet chocolate as well as cocoa powder.

And that's why these actually taste like chocolate biscotti.

Thank you.

Would you put that in there?

So we put about a half a cup of the dry mixture in there; more or less is okay.

And we're going to let this process until it's completely smooth and pulverized.

(chocolate chunks rattling) (no longer rattling) You can kind of hear when it's ready when the chocolate pieces don't clang against the bowl anymore.

Okay, so we'll add that back in.

So much of baking seems to be about mixing all the dry ingredients together and all the wet ingredients together and then bringing them.

That's what we're going to do now.

- Three eggs.

- Three eggs.

Touch of almond extract.

- Vanilla.

- Your favorite.

- Yes.

- And just make those smooth.

Now that is the entire amount of liquid that's going to go into these biscotti.

All right, good.

We're going to start mixing this.

At some point, the eggs are going to get completely absorbed into this, and it will feel as if it's way too dry and that it will never come together, but it will.

You just have to trust in the biscotti and then start pressing.

Okay, resist the urge to add water.

- I would have already been in for about a quarter cup of water at this point or oil.

- So we'll add the four ounces of chocolate that you just chopped.

We'll also add some almonds that have been lightly roasted to increase their flavor.

So those few little adaptations you make along the way, one of the things I added was a little bit more of the chopped chocolate in the dough, not just the chocolate that was blended in.

And I added the pistachios for color.

Also added a little bit of dried cherry to the dough because I was looking for something around the holidays.

- Was this clean out the pantry day at the Bianca household?

- Well, it just shows that this is one of those recipes you can add the things you like.

The thing to remember, though, that's important here is the ratio.

Whatever the volume of the recipe is for all these things, total, don't go beyond that because it will disrupt the dough too much and it won't hold together.

Okay, so now we have to get in there with our hands, that's really the only way.

we're going to use our hands in a minute anyway, so this is okay.

Okay, so this has a couple more minutes of mixing together, and then we'll be ready to shape the logs.

See, it came together, and you don't think it will.

So we're going to divide this into two logs, and the dough is going to bake in those logs before we slice it into individual biscotti.

Okay, you get one, I get one.

Instead of using flour to shape the logs, which you would normally do, that creates sort of like a dusty surface on the outside.

I don't like the way it looks, but just use a little bit of water to make your palms slightly damp.

- Yeah.

- And then we will press this into a log shape.

14-inch-long log.

See how stiff and thick the dough is, but very pliable, very malleable.

It's holding together even with all those chunky ingredients in it.

And that's why you don't want too many chunky ingredients.

- So is that 14?

- No, I think that's like 13.

(Christopher laughs) - That's the story of my life.

"Is it good?"

"No."

- It's fine.

- Okay.

- We'll put them both on the sheet tray about four inches apart.

You'd be surprised.

These change drastically in the oven.

They poof up, they spread out, and they get crackly on top.

It's pretty cool.

So 375 for the logs to bake, about 45 to 50 minutes.

Then they cool for a brief amount of time before we slice them; they go back into a lower oven and to finish baking.

- Okay.

So, they're still warm, or...?

- They are.

15 to 20 minutes.

You don't want to slice them when they're hot, but you don't want to let them cool down completely because then they get too crunchy to slice.

So they're still warm.

And you can see how they spread out a little bit.

The crackly surface on top is perfect.

Not a mistake.

I will very carefully transfer this to you.

But the trick here first is how to slice them.

So you can try sawing.

And then pushing through at the bottom.

And you want to cut them about a half an inch thick.

- Like this?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

You can try the knife straight or at an angle.

Whatever works is the method you stick with.

So you're probably going to sacrifice a few slices to start, but that's okay.

We'll put these cut side down, and then you have that beautiful pattern of the nuts, and the pistachios, and the almonds facing up.

Okay, these have had their first baking as a log.

We turned the oven down to 275 when those logs came out, and now the slices go in at 275 for about 20 minutes while they finish crisping up.

Look what we made.

Cheers.

- Well, wait a minute.

This is not Vino Santo or something, I mean... - It could be.

- This is coffee.

- Because these are so deeply chocolate, the sweet dessert wine isn't the only thing they'll go good with.

I mean, bourbon... - Well, bourbon's not bad.

Bourbon goes with everything.

- (laughing): Yeah.

Right.

- So... (loud crunch) - Right?

- Mm... - Crunchy, but not hard, right?

- Well, the, the two problems with biscotti: they're too hard and you break a tooth on them... - Mm-hmm.

- Or they're too sandy and... - Ooh... crumbly.

- Crumbly.

They're like shortbread.

- Right.

- But this is good because it's got some tooth to it, but it's not so hard you can't bite it.

- Right.

- So chocolate biscotti, and you added pistachios, almonds, and tart cherries.

We should thank Maida Heatter... - Yes.

- Because we were very much inspired by her for this recipe and many other recipes.

And thank you for sharing 30 years of biscotti experience here on Milk Street.

They're supposed to last a long time, but I don't think they will.

- I'll split that with you.

- Okay.

- (chuckling): Okay.

- Back in Amalfi, Italy, Giovanna Aceto showed us this really beautiful lemon pasta dish that was sauted in a very simple garlic sauce.

Now, we're going to try and recreate the same thing here.

And while we don't have Amalfi lemons, we do have a couple of tricks up our sleeve to kind of recreate that flavor.

So it all starts with using lemons in multiple different ways and it starts with our zest.

So what we're going to do is we're going to use a Y-style peeler, and we're going to peel the zest off of these lemons in big, long strips.

And you want to do this to two lemons, and that way we can really maximize all of that lemon zest flavor.

Now, while you're peeling, you want to avoid getting any of that white bitter pith.

Because we'll be eating these zest pieces, and therefore, if we get that bitterness now, we're going to get that bitterness later.

Now, it's really important while you're working with lemons from the States, be sure to wash them first.

So now from here, we'll go ahead and take all of our zest and we're going to throw it into two quarts of water that we brought up to a boil.

And we'll also follow that up with some salt.

And a little interesting ingredient: some sugar.

So now we're going to get to working on our next layer of lemon flavor, which involves cutting the lemon up.

But not just the whole lemon, we just want the segments.

So we're going to get a little involved with our knife work to make that happen.

So what we'll do is you'll take off the top and bottom of the lemon-- probably about half an inch-- but really what you're looking for is the flesh on the inside.

So notice here, I made that cut, and I didn't quite get to the flesh.

Go ahead and make another small slice and continue to do that until you see the flesh of the lemon itself.

There we go.

From there, take your lemon and put it on one of the cut sides, and you're going to use your knife to cut away all of that white pith and expose the flesh inside.

Something that I'll do is I'll line up the edge of my blade with the exposed flesh, and that's why we want to see that.

it gives us a little guideline.

And if you missed some parts at the bottom, don't worry, you could flip it over and cut it up again.

Now, being very careful, you want to hold your lemon in one hand, and then using your knife, you want to cut in between those little membrane guidelines to remove the segment.

And the best way to do this is working over a bowl.

That way you catch those segments as they fall out, as well as any of the juices.

Now, there's still a lot of juice in this membrane that we have left behind, so go ahead and squeeze that out.

That way we can get that flavor into the dish.

We worked really hard on those lemon segments, but we're going to work just a little bit harder to remove all those seeds, because I don't want to eat seeds in my final dish.

I don't think you do either.

From here, we'll want to season these lemon segments because, like I said, Amalfi lemons are a little bit different than the lemons we get here in the States.

They're far less sharp and they're a little bit sweeter.

So to do that, we'll be seasoning the lemons with a little bit of salt as well as a little bit of sugar.

Give that a little stir and we'll set that aside.

Now, like I said, we're working with lemon flavor in layers here, and the next layer comes in the form of grated zest.

Now, this is the zest of two other lemons, and we're going to, again, give it the Amalfi treatment with a little bit of salt as well as a little bit of sugar.

Something that we like to do here is massage the zest with salt or sugar to really express a lot of those oils that are in the zest.

And to that we'll also throw in some olive oil and we'll give that a little stir.

And boom, another layer of lemon flavor done.

So finally we can look at this water that's been bubbling away, and we'll pull out all of those lemon zest strips and set them into a bowl.

By boiling them, we broke them down, they're a lot softer, and that means we could cut them up nice and fine.

So all the zest came out of that supercharged pasta water.

Now keep in mind, we are only boiling in two quarts of pasta water here, and that's going to help create a really thick starchy sauce that's going to cling to our pasta at the end.

And here we're working with store-bought fresh pasta.

And we'll throw that right into our water here and cook it for about three minutes, just until it's al dente.

So I've drained my pasta, it's nice and al dente, and I've saved about a cup and a half of that liquid to use as the sauce later down the road.

From here, we want to build even more layers of flavor, but this time not with lemon.

So here I have a 12-inch skillet set over medium heat.

I'm going to bring some olive oil up to temperature.

In the meantime, while that heats, I'm going to go ahead and cut up all of the lemon zest that we boiled in the pasta water.

You want to get it fairly fine.

We want that lemon flavor dispersed throughout the sauce.

We do have a little shimmer going on, so we could go ahead and add in our garlic.

As well as our chili flake.

We just want to give that a few moments to become aromatic.

Really what you're looking for is when your garlic starts to brown just slightly.

And we're already there.

So from here we can go ahead and add in those seasoned lemon segments.

And if any of your garlic's stuck to the bottom of the pan, the lemon juice is going to help deglaze and lift that up from the pan itself.

Just like the garlic and the chili flake, we only want to cook this until the lemon segments are warmed through.

That way we still maintain a little bit of their tang.

All right, and from there, we add this directly into our pasta that we returned back into the pot.

We're going to scrape it all out because we don't want to miss out on any of that flavor.

And to this, we're also going to throw in about half a cup of that reserved pasta water.

Now again, the starches that are in that concentrated pasta water is what's going to help create a sauce that's silky and clings to the pasta.

We're going to keep layering that lemon flavor in again with that zest that we chopped up.

We'll follow that up with the lemon zest that we have sitting in oil.

And finally some parsley, some freshness to bring some other colors into this game.

And once again, toss, toss, toss.

So I only added in a half cup of that pasta water.

I'm finding that I need a little bit more, and that's why we have so much extra on hand.

You want to add it in about a tablespoon at a time just to get the desired sauce consistency.

So it's at this point that you want to go ahead and give it a taste just to see if it needs a little bit of extra salt, extra pepper.

Mm, oh, it's so bright.

That lemon flavor is really coming through, but it's not too sharp, which I really like.

So from here we can go ahead and plate up.

So what I like to do is pull up a nice amount with my tongs, and then give both the tongs and the plate a little twist.

I think I'm going to hit this with a little extra parmesan on top.

And maybe just one quick glug of olive oil.

And there you have it, a beautifully bright, citrusy lemon garlic fettuccine.

It's bright, it's savory, it has a little bit of a kick.

What more could you want in a pasta?

You can get this recipe, as well as all of the other recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

You sauted, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad: for all your kitchen adventures.