The Alfredo

Welcome back to another exciting adventure of "How Much Flour Can Alicia Get on her Shirt before Realizing that Cheree Bought Her an Apron?"

This week, I'm going to show you guys how to make my very awesome, and probably pretty fattening, Alfredo sauce.  I stumbled upon a few recipes similar to this while looking for an Olive Garden copy cat.

My Alfredo adventure began at Borders *sniffle.*  I was browsing the discounted cookbooks when I happened upon "Entertaining with the Sopranos."

Not sure why I picked it up, other than the fact that it's pretty unique.  This book introduced me to bechamel sauce (basically a white sauce, sans cheese).  After many failed attempts over a few years, I scouted the web.  Took some notes, and this is what I came up with as the "perfect" Alfredo sauce.

 
Here are your main ingredients:

• Angel hair pasta
• Cooking oil (most people will recommend olive oil, but all I had was vegetable oil)
• Grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (Romano is shown)
• Cloves of garlic--I used 4 because I LOVE garlic and am getting over a cold
• Milk
• Salt
• Pepper
• Flour (not shown)
• Parsley (not shown)
• Garlic salt (not shown)

Start by filling your pasta pot with water and setting it on high.  There's nothing I hate more than waiting for water to boil so I can drop my pasta.  Apparently at a high altitude and on a gas stove, the wait is even longer.

Meanwhile, start popping your garlic.  Yes.  Pop your garlic.  Pull the the desired number of cloves from your bulb, lay them on a flat surface, place a butcher's knife over the top and CAREFULLY smack it with the palm of your hand.  (Thank you, Nicole!)  The clove will smash and the skin will easily peel away.

Cut those cloves in half and put them through a garlic press.



This little gadget has saved me a lot of time and energy dicing fresh garlic.

In a non-stick skillet, swirl the oil once around the pan (I did twice for this recipe and it came out a little oily), and add a stick of butter.  Set the pan on the stove over medium-high heat and wait for the butter to melt a little bit before adding the garlic.



Let the garlic cook until the butter melts all the way.  Don't let it get brown!  I salt my garlic...not sure why...but it tastes good.  Stir with a rubber spatula to spread it out over the pan.

Next, sprinkle a handful of flour into the pan and quickly stir with the spatula.  We're making a garlicky version of the bechamel, also known as a Roux.




This is why my recipe is a little different from the others--you MUST use oil AND butter to prevent the flour from clumping as it cooks.  If it does start clumping, turn your heat down a little bit and we'll take care of that issue in the next step.



Add about 1/2 cup of milk.  I'm totally guessing here, as I don't measure.  I started with about 1/4 cup, then my sauce clumped, so I added a bit more.  As soon as this mixture is borderline between soupy and clumpy (hopefully more soupy than clumpy), add half the container of Parmesan.  Sprinkle the mixture with pepper, garlic salt and parsley and mix thoroughly.



Now that your sauce is done, hopefully your water is boiling or has already started boiling.  One of the reasons I love Angel Hair Pasta is the fact that it cooks in half the time of regular spaghetti.  Drop the pasta, cook as you normally would, drain it and put it back in the pot it was cooking in.  Pour the sauce over the top and mix well.

Voila!



My dinner tonight!  That I've been eating throughout this post!  This recipe will make at least 2 servings (yay leftovers for me!) and you can always increase the quantities for bigger portions.  Tom and I will eat this as a side, or as a main dish mixed with sauteed shrimp.

Thanks for reading; hopefully next week I'll remember to teach you guys how to make my sweet tea!