Tonite we tried making pasta alfredo for the first time. We used the (recently trending?) bowl method so we
- Cooked the pasta (about ~8oz of cellentani/cavatappi)
- Scooped it all directly from the water into a big metal bowl
- Added about ~3tbsp butter, cut into separate pads
- Stir/shook it all til the butter melted (I thought we did it pretty vigorously!)
- Slowly added in ~1c of parmesan that we’d grated ourselves while continuing to stir & shake
- Noticed that the cheese was becoming a bit stuck together/gloopy despite adding it slowly
- Tried adding some more butter & pasta water while stirring and shaking
- Put it back in the (empty) pasta pot to try to use some of that residual heat to melt the cheese more, still stirring/shaking
Putting it back in the warm pot did seem to help the cheese melt a bit better, but it still ended up kinda gloopy/cheese stringy rather than a creamy sauce, even after we added a bit more butter & reserved pasta water.
We still added some pepper and ate it, along with the chicken we’d made to add too, it wasn’t a bad meal overall, it just wasn’t the creamy sauce we were going for.
Do you think maybe we lost too much heat while waiting for the butter to melt? Or did we need a specific kind of parm rather than just a regular one that we grated ourselves? Or our stir & shake wasn’t vigorous enough despite our best efforts?
I know you can’t say for certain, but any tips to help improve our chances of success next time would be so appreciated! Thanks! :)
How much pasta water did you add before you started putting the cheese in?
Hmm when we started adding the cheese, it was just the carry-over pasta water from scooping it out of pot (and the melted butter), so probably just like a 1/4 cup or so? Then we ended up adding about 3/4 of a cup while mixing in the cheese after realizing it was getting gloopy.
Should we have added more pasta waster before the cheese?! I will feel so silly if it turns out that’s all we needed to do, because the big pot of pasta water was right there… Haha.
Yeah, more before the cheese. That might be the problem.
It’s the starch in the water, blended thoroughly with the liquid fat, that creates the emulsion. Once the fat/water emulsion exists, the cheese can melt into it. (it’s also how ayonnaise is made - except, obviously, egg instead of cheese.)
If the cheese has already begun to clump, it’s too late. At that point, if you add heat or starch, the cheese can’t slowly melt into the emulsion - chemical reactions in the cheese have already begun to take place.
(Science!)
If you struggle to get it right with pasta water, you could also try mixing in powdered starch before you add the cheese. That will let you experiment with more predictable quantities of starch. It’s less traditional, but it’s easier to control.
Ah yea, that makes sense. If I try using this method again I’ll def keep this in mind! Thank you! :)