That said, I have friends with a gorgeous farmhouse in southern France and the traditional farm kitchen is tres petit! So small they built one outside for cooking bigger meals and for cooking in the warm months. It really surprised me, but they said that the traditional kitchens (70-150 years old) are little more than a sink, a stove and a tiny workspace because in winter they cooked over the fireplace in the living room and a lot of cooking and baking was done outside. Of course the very, very wealthy had servants and sometimes a separate cook house, but even well-to-do French apparently had tiny kitchens!
As an italian, born in italy, growing up around italian family and cooking my whole life, i approve the thyme and pepper....good food is good food even if it isn't perfectly authentic....uniqueness is what drives innovation
Especially if you are making food for yourself the way you like it. If I am making pasta for myself, I generally don't care what an Italian guy thousands of miles away would think about it. That's silly. I think about how I would like it.
@@ryer9646true and it's funny how some Italians will not approve of anything outside of traditions but yey every dish, every single dish was ONCE outside of traditions..
@excusemebut Yeah. Italians are funny that way. You know they got the tomato in the late 15th century but refused to eat it until the 19th. That's like 300 years of culinary obstinance. At that rate it'll be the 24th century before they accept that pineapple goes nicely with ham on pizza.
I was gonna use a blowtorch to create that same effect but I'm afraid that the gas from the blowtorch would pollute the air and tamper with the flavour. Does anyone have any tips?
You are slowly becoming "Bourdainian" something the world needs more of, thank you for opening a whole new world of cuisine and culture to the world Alex
I kept yelling “more cheese..” during the first try. The emulsion needed the cheese and pasta water to come together with the beurre but I’m glad you got it in the end. I like the mix of farina and semola as well. I’m not crazy about fresh pasta due to the lack of Al dente as you said, but for fettuccine Alfredo, I think it works. Well done Alex!
@@FredrikGranlundkayaker At some point it stops being creamy and becomes more parmesan textured. I knew the more cheese trick when watery, but went overboard and didn't load up on good starchy pasta water when I tried it years ago.
I felt a tingle down my spine when I saw that slurry. I usually only do one batch of pasta, and I feel that I just saw a revelation. I'm going to try that with my next pasta dish!
You are probably not going to do it this way but I get fantastic results by doing the following. I cook the pasta, reserve a couple of cups at the end, drain the pasta, add chunks of butter, some pasta water and parm, then IN THE POT, whip it vigorously with a wooden spoon. Season to taste and it works for me 100% of the time. Oh, and I use less water than what I normally would for the extra starch. Like a lot less water. I know its not as fancy as doing it table side but the results are perfect and I was a professional cook for 15 years in high end french restaurants if that means anything.
I'm quite proud of myself that I immediately spotted the "mistake" of the not enough starchy water in the first try. I knew that because of your carbonara series! It inspired me to learn the dish properly and is now one of my go to recipes when I cook for someone, because I'm proud of it. But during the experimentation phase I had the same problem with not enough creaminess, until I started adding extra starch! So, thanks for educating and inspiring me in the kitchen!
Yeah, me too. I was halfway through writing a comment before I figured I should watch the rest of the video, and of course Alex was on to it. I have to assume even the restaurants must either add some flour or some of the previous day’s water at the start of the day, otherwise the first servings would be terrible.
Here are a couple of tips: setting 8 minimum on pasta machine to finish with so they are even thinner. Also, you can emulsify using your cul de poule on top of the cooking pot, to create kind of a bain marie for the emulsion, they don't get cold and you get a creamier result. finally, adding the cheese in stages was what helped me get the perfect creamyness in the end.
Allright, i know you are getting more and more professional, but these episodes where you are just making something, either in le studio or at home are my favorite!
After watching the vid from your trip to the restaurant I made this at home with fresh pasta from Eatily (I’m in NorCal), it came out great. Next time I’ll make my own pasta. Also, I used as small amount of water as possible to cook the pasta so I would have starchy water, I’m sure that helped to as my impulsion was perfect. Lastly, make sure the cheese is grated super fine.
I made umbrichelle this morning (Umbrian hand-rolled pasta) and had the identical thought : it's hard to be sad when you are making pasta. The kneading is a meditation, the rolling is exercise, the shaping is a return to childhood, and then you get to eat it!
I tried to make that dish for some friends the night before you uploaded your video. I wasn‘t satisfied with my result, but seeing this I am ashamed of myself for trying to wing it. The dish is so much simpler, way more elegant and most importantly I am craving for that creaminess right now :D Thanks for your videos and especially the pasta series. Love it and I learned so much. Also it‘s so much more fun when you really understand the dish and be able to create such a nice meal with just a few simple ingredients. P.S. I also love your ramen series ;)
The pasta water the restaurant uses has been cooking pasta for many orders; it is very starch rich. You can enrich your water a few ways; first, sacrificial pasta cooked into the water first to be disposed of, second, as you did, add a slurry of flour directly to the water (any starch will work), third, you can use a more powerful burner and cook in a smaller amount of water which will make a denser starchy water.
I've left the pot with the starchy water on the stove to cook another batch the following day (well, to save water), it ended up a day later as planned. Meanwhile , the starch has thickened alone bc of that delay. Kinda similar to animal glue. JFTR
I have started to cook my pasta almost like rice whenever possible. Takes a little longer but the water is do powerful and so reduced a creamy sauce had been achieved every single time. Instead of making a flower slurry I would just use a third of the volume in water for a single meal at home. Great video, I want to go out and buy some cheese now
In more then 45 years of cooking am happy was taught early that ANY recipe is a starting point for your imagination & taste. Technic & ratios are what I follow and the advice from my mother .... 5 ingredients makes a dish add more and it better be a soup or a stew
As an Italian, like all Italians when told to not do something they still do it, I watched the video. You were probably too generous with the starch water amount. You had the emulsion going, but you can see a soup in the big plate, instead of a cream.
I also feel like the restaurant's pasta is less cooked, so absorbs more liquid than his, this could also account for the "soup" instead of mantecatura.
The pasta water...that is the key. thank you for debugging this for us. As many times as I have seen some Italian youtubers who shall remain nameless tell us to always use the pasta water as a thickening agent it never actually thckens the sauce when I have tried in the past...the note about adding starch intentionally to the water if you dont use that same water over and over again makes perfect sense. I will try this tomorrow.
i'm italian so hear a trick that could be useful: You have to put more parmesan in order to recreate the "cream" and boost the flavor of the entire dish. The recipe idea is a combination of the "pasta al burro" recipe (pasta with butter) and the "cacio e pepe" (Typical recipe also made in Rome, Pasta with cheese and black pepper) so don't be afraid to cover the plate with parmesan and then you can mix it with the fettuccine (the hard part is to have the perfect balance of cheese and water: you use cheese to make the dish less liquid and water to make it more liquid so you need to master the perfect amount of both) have fun!
Les fettuccini Alfredo étaient mes pâtes préférée quand j'étais enfant. C'etait cependant un truc en sac acheter à l'épicerie. Ca faisait tres longtemps que j'en avais mangé. Ce soir j'ai exécuter la recette originale et je suis sous le choc. La recette est incroyable bonne. C'est un retour à l'enfance mais en vesion amélioré. Merci pour le partage!
Alex, this is wonderful! The care, passion, and attention you put in your dishes is at the very least equal to that you put in the videos you make - which says something. Now, as an Italian, I'd like to add my bit: there is nothing wrong with adding thyme and pepper! They do match the rest of the ingredients quite well, in fact (although I might argue that fresh sage - salvia - would've been even better, but that's not the point). What most Italians tend to complain about (while often being, admittedly, quite caricatural and excessive) is other people completely distorting the nature of dishes, and namely adding (i) far too many ingredients and (ii) things that don't really mix together. Italian cuisine, above all, is about simplicity and balance, which we can afford due to the high quality of the produce. When I open pasta recipes from non-Italians and immediately see seven cloves of garlic and four spices mixed up, I immediately get alarmed. As your personal journey shows, the palate is like a muscle: it can be trained, and educated. So yes, everyone can (and should!) eat whatever they like, but there *are* things that more refined palates will generally dismiss, while appreciating taste that's alien to mouths less used to particular flavor. You wouldn't want eating lessons from someone who's only had junk food (or one type of food) their entire life, right? Here, your execution is borderline perfect, and your personal touch very well spot on and welcome. We love our traditions, sometimes too much, but it's the principles behind it we dearly hold on to. And you did great!
The moment I finished this video I pulled out a pasta maker that I’ve had for 10 years and never used. Just happened to have half a block of parm that needed to be used. I’m sure I could’ve done better on the fettuccine, but the creaminess is out of this world. Thank you, Alex, for all that you do to inspire schlubs like me to cook things I’d never try otherwise. Still working on that omelet.
I am glad i held off trying to make this pasta myself until this video, i feel i have a better understanding of how it's made and how to make it for my family
I really think you read a lot of comments, since this video finally portrait the satisfaction of beeing somewhat completed. The last series(pl.) always left me as a viewer with lack of fulfilment. Really enjoyed this one. Keep this up,
Of course i understand the power of a good cliffhanger and how these series kept me craving for the next episodes. Just wanted to highlight how soothing this change of narration was.
I love how you improve on every video, that is very hard work since the first one. As a grandson of an italian immigrant I feel more connected to this pasta series, keep going! You should try making "pasta al limone", simple but full of technique.
Alex, instead of adding the flour and water mixture into the water, you couldve used very little water, just enough for the pasta to not stick together and cooked it, this creates a starch rich pasta water, or put your pasta in a pot and add boiling water to it (asian style) and keep it that way and not on the stove with heat which would be easier as there no fire below for the pasta to then stick on the bottom. Or you can do what u did, that also def works
Thyme and Black Pepper, excellent. Was begging you to add more starch to the emulsifier/cooking water and you did, this is about as close to perfection as we can hope to do!
This is one of the reasons why many classic Italian pasta dishes don't work as well at home as they do in a restaurant. When making them at home, we cook pasta in clean water. When I'm was trying to recreate cacio e pepe, I experimented with adding potato or wheat starch to the pasta cooking water. This little thing makes the sauce really creamy without the use of cream.
A little bit of lemon zest would be a great addition to the original. Your second attempt looked like you got everything except too thick of noodles, but you admitted that already. Very well done. That is a very nice kitchen, especially having a french top stove is a great thing. When I built my kitchen, I made sure to have a french top stove and a proper wok burner. You really should consider having them in your new kitchen as well.
Alex, yes! This is the perfect mix of science and cooking. Keep it up! This is what everyone needs and frankly I assume everyone wants! C'est super fantastique!
There's a reason most people buy their pasta dried in bags/boxes and their sauce in jars. Pasta is hard dude! It's a matter of grams of flour, seconds of cooking, how many portions you boiled in the same water......it's such a simple thing, and yet so complex.
This gives me the idea to try making the emulsion separately from the noodles e.g. using a blender on butter, pasta water, and parmesan, and then add that to the noodles like you would any sauce. What I'll do is plate the pasta, dump most of the water out of the pot, and make the emulsion in the pot with an immersion blender, then add the noodles back in.
No Italians were offended because you made it correctly, then decided to experiment without continuing to call it Alfredo. Besides, we are not emotionally attached to Alfredo - it's what you eat when you run out of ingredients or when you are sick. Yours, however, looked amazing, and it actually made me want to eat it. Well done!
Pasta al Burro is my favourite weeknight meal. Has four ingredients with easy prep, takes about ten minutes to do (if you buy in the pasta), and is absolutely delicious.
@@gregmuon Fettucine Afredo is a rich people's dish for restaurants. It wouldn't be made in your mama's kitchen, so that makes sense. It's always been more popular in America than in Italy though, Italians barely know the dish.
Well you make the rolling loop look so easy but the tip about reducing the pasta roller down to 8 was a master stroke. My family now love the much thinner fettuccine and it inspired my wife to find a home made tomato sauce that even our kids rated. A very definite win… Thanks for all the content..
i find that the pasta rollers with their "1mm minimum" thickness can vary widely, especially with a low moisture dough. I have tried a 50 euro roller, and a 250 euro roller with similar results and the more expensive one felt a bit less like it would fall apart. Then my mom said: "What's wrong with finishing it off with a normal cake roller before you cut?" et ta-da! leaf-thin pasta with the surface area to volume ratio that allows for the melt-in-your-mouth feel. I even made my own version of a Chinese seared and peppered beef dish that benefits wonderfully from the almost see-through pasta.
The only thing I would add, would be a little bit of white pepper, and, a very tiny pinch of nutmeg, which will bring out the creaminess of the sauce. The starchy pasta water and butter make a form of béchamel sauce.. in the heavenly laden grated Parmesan.
The emulsion is more than just about the starch in the pasta water. It is also the butter. Buter itself is an emulsion, but not if it gets too hot, so another way to make this is to add cold chunks of butter as you toss it.
Alex, I think they used more egg yolks than you did. Their dough was a darker yellow. I'm not sure how much (if any) difference that would make to the final texture or flavor/taste, but it's something to consider... I'd say you got it nearly perfectly in the end... Well done & thanks for sharing!
More egg yolks would affect the colour but would also make the pasta more silky and have a stronger egg flavour. If you look in his 2nd dough he does add 2 or so extra yolks to the mixture so I personally believe it was more to do with the semolina. They use tipo 0 (or fine) alex used coarse. Would have made a slight difference; the dough would have hydrated more due to the greater surface area to volume ratio of each of the finer flour grains. All in all very little difference. Maybe his egg yolks were just a little lighter colour to begin with :D
Alex, awesome video as always. The only noticeable difference i saw would be the aggression in the mixing process. You went for a more delicate approach vs what you showed at the restaurant. Your noodles held their shape but from the restaurant view those looked almost broken down and part of the sauce.
As Italian I say you can add thyme, pepper, pineapple, sour cream and anything you want as long you know you are not making the original dish, but trying to innovate the tradition or make your own version. This awareness is a matter of respect of the culture and you have plenty of it! Just consider a thing: classics are classics for a reason. Ask yourself why a recipe survived for generations unchanged
using extra starch is actually a restaurant trick for cacio e pepe aswell. mix hot water and starch, till you get a goopy consistency, let it cool down, then mix that with cheese and pepper. that starch makes it WAY harder to break the emulsion by heating it too much. ive even seen people full on boil it after that, without the cheese breaking from the sauce. So its a great trick for family sized portions, or prepreparing a paste for restaurant use.
This seems a lot easier than how I was taught to make Fettuccine Alfredo. We would make it in two steps. We would make a sauce with heavy cream, parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt, and a little bit of garlic. We would slowly bring it to temp to prevent the sauce from breaking. Then we would run thin fettuccine noodles made in house through it and onto the plate. Obviously this Italian's recipe would probably be the original. It seems more plausible that this would be the case historically due to it's simplicity and the way it removes some of the risk to a broken sauce. The recipe you showed us is a more high end recipe served individually for each customer. Whereas the recipe I was taught was also from an Italian owner. But was designed for fast bulk servings. It was made at 2pm to serve dinner at 4pm for a several hundred or so customers wanting this or other dishes(Pizza, Spaghetti, Mostacholi, Canoli, and a few other dishes like scampi). Our seating capacity was 80. We would flip 2 to 3 times per hour until close at 11pm. I miss that place. It was awesome. The owner died and it closed shop.
That’s standard in Germany for Spaghetti Carbonara bc cream is cheap and easier to handle. Meanwhile, you can find (Italian)Restaurants that offer "Carbonara Originale" doing it properly (while I doubt that they use Guanciale/Pancetta but the lower priced "Bauchfleisch" instead).
The cameramans mom having a full on professional kitchen that is also gorgeous is the most casual french thing ever. 😂 I love it
That herb garden is nothing to sneeze at either.
That said, I have friends with a gorgeous farmhouse in southern France and the traditional farm kitchen is tres petit! So small they built one outside for cooking bigger meals and for cooking in the warm months. It really surprised me, but they said that the traditional kitchens (70-150 years old) are little more than a sink, a stove and a tiny workspace because in winter they cooked over the fireplace in the living room and a lot of cooking and baking was done outside. Of course the very, very wealthy had servants and sometimes a separate cook house, but even well-to-do French apparently had tiny kitchens!
not casual french, just casual french bourgeois
As an Italian I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the end result. Let's not talk about the thyme and pepper in the end and we're still friends.
😂
He specifically told you not to watch.
A little freestyle is OK imo ❤
@@stuart207 It would have been better with sage instead of thyme though
I guarantee there’s grandma somewhere in Italy on a farm who throws in thyme and pepper. It’s fine
As an italian, born in italy, growing up around italian family and cooking my whole life, i approve the thyme and pepper....good food is good food even if it isn't perfectly authentic....uniqueness is what drives innovation
And also: thyme goes with everything !
Well said!
Especially if you are making food for yourself the way you like it. If I am making pasta for myself, I generally don't care what an Italian guy thousands of miles away would think about it. That's silly. I think about how I would like it.
@@ryer9646true and it's funny how some Italians will not approve of anything outside of traditions but yey every dish, every single dish was ONCE outside of traditions..
@excusemebut Yeah. Italians are funny that way. You know they got the tomato in the late 15th century but refused to eat it until the 19th. That's like 300 years of culinary obstinance. At that rate it'll be the 24th century before they accept that pineapple goes nicely with ham on pizza.
I never want this pasta series to end!
At the restaurant they have their plates in a warm cabinet. That help to not get cold pasta this quickly
I was thinking the same thing. When I try it, and I'm going to, I will put my dish in the oven to assist with heat retention.
I was gonna use a blowtorch to create that same effect but I'm afraid that the gas from the blowtorch would pollute the air and tamper with the flavour. Does anyone have any tips?
You are slowly becoming "Bourdainian" something the world needs more of, thank you for opening a whole new world of cuisine and culture to the world Alex
pretentious and a pedo?
What does that mean
@@ImEmpTy295 A la Anthony Bourdain
Oh no, we know how that ended.
hopefully his partner doesn't mirror Bourdain's partner, driving him to a Bourdainian end!
Oh, forgot to compliment the kitchen, maybe we can have an interview with the owner in the future, it seems awesome!
As Italian i belive you should try Salvia instead of Timo; we usually cook pasta with butter and salvia. Give it a try 😉😉😉
Salvia is drugs isnt it?
Salvia = sage
@@Tony-fx9ky there are many different kinds of sage/salvia. The one people use as a drug is dried white sage, an american species.
@@rafaelteodoroedu makes sense thanks👍
@@Tony-fx9ky Salvia Divinorum vs Salvia Officinalis
I kept yelling “more cheese..” during the first try. The emulsion needed the cheese and pasta water to come together with the beurre but I’m glad you got it in the end. I like the mix of farina and semola as well. I’m not crazy about fresh pasta due to the lack of Al dente as you said, but for fettuccine Alfredo, I think it works. Well done Alex!
There's always room for more cheese. 😉
@@FredrikGranlundkayaker At some point it stops being creamy and becomes more parmesan textured. I knew the more cheese trick when watery, but went overboard and didn't load up on good starchy pasta water when I tried it years ago.
Absolutely on point as always Alex! Love the idea of a flour slurry to up the starch content. Cant wait to see the new le studio! 🙏
Great to See You here David! Alex is also a favorite of mine! Can't wait For the new place either!😊😊😊😊😊
Can’t wait to see Alex’s fettuccine Alfredo compete head to head against other youtuber’s recipes.
Alex's fettuccini vs Tasty when?
I felt a tingle down my spine when I saw that slurry. I usually only do one batch of pasta, and I feel that I just saw a revelation. I'm going to try that with my next pasta dish!
@@vandorb12I thought the same exact thing!
You are probably not going to do it this way but I get fantastic results by doing the following. I cook the pasta, reserve a couple of cups at the end, drain the pasta, add chunks of butter, some pasta water and parm, then IN THE POT, whip it vigorously with a wooden spoon. Season to taste and it works for me 100% of the time. Oh, and I use less water than what I normally would for the extra starch. Like a lot less water. I know its not as fancy as doing it table side but the results are perfect and I was a professional cook for 15 years in high end french restaurants if that means anything.
I have wanted a La Cornue stove for a long time. Maman is a very fortunate lady!
Oh wow that kitchen is BEAUTIFUL
I'm quite proud of myself that I immediately spotted the "mistake" of the not enough starchy water in the first try. I knew that because of your carbonara series! It inspired me to learn the dish properly and is now one of my go to recipes when I cook for someone, because I'm proud of it. But during the experimentation phase I had the same problem with not enough creaminess, until I started adding extra starch!
So, thanks for educating and inspiring me in the kitchen!
Yeah, me too. I was halfway through writing a comment before I figured I should watch the rest of the video, and of course Alex was on to it.
I have to assume even the restaurants must either add some flour or some of the previous day’s water at the start of the day, otherwise the first servings would be terrible.
Good to hear that your skills are improving to the point that you can spot that! Also, excellent choice for your go-to.
@@quatsch6910Interesting perspective, and I suspect you're right. Alex knows how to tell a compelling story.
Lou and his mom are the best! The kitchen is indeed gorgeous!🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤❤❤
Exactly, Lou's mom's kitchen is "okay" - where okay == F-ing awesome
The whole neighborhood looks amazing, but that kitchen though... [checks house prices in France]
That kitchen is exquisite I would kill to have one in my house like that in Southern California.
Thanks guys! I’ll let my mother know :)
I wish you'd take an episode to tell the stories that kitchen has seen.
Here are a couple of tips: setting 8 minimum on pasta machine to finish with so they are even thinner. Also, you can emulsify using your cul de poule on top of the cooking pot, to create kind of a bain marie for the emulsion, they don't get cold and you get a creamier result. finally, adding the cheese in stages was what helped me get the perfect creamyness in the end.
Those are some excellent tips!
THANK YOU FOR THIS!! I was going to try to make some today!
I went to setting 9...
You need to turn it up to 11
@@FrenchGuyCookingyoure the Best Alex ❤❤❤❤❤
Allright, i know you are getting more and more professional, but these episodes where you are just making something, either in le studio or at home are my favorite!
I just wanted to share my appreciation for your storytelling; visually, in the script and in the structure of your videos. Just awesome.
Thanks to Tita for her kindness and helping Alex.
After watching the vid from your trip to the restaurant I made this at home with fresh pasta from Eatily (I’m in NorCal), it came out great. Next time I’ll make my own pasta. Also, I used as small amount of water as possible to cook the pasta so I would have starchy water, I’m sure that helped to as my impulsion was perfect. Lastly, make sure the cheese is grated super fine.
That was my experience as well after watching the Rome video.
Yup, I’ve found that grating the cheese super fine makes a world of difference. (That’s one of the secrets to my super creamy Cacio e pepe)
I'm just in awe at that kitchen 🤯
What an amazing kitchen! :O I have a feeling a collaboration with its owner would be a nice video :D
Nice relaxed fun beautiful video .. that kitchen is a stunning❤ dream!
The hardwork in each series is itself commendable . I love how Alex chases perfection
I made umbrichelle this morning (Umbrian hand-rolled pasta) and had the identical thought : it's hard to be sad when you are making pasta. The kneading is a meditation, the rolling is exercise, the shaping is a return to childhood, and then you get to eat it!
What a glorious kitchen! What fine photography! What a video!
Such a beautiful kitchen! Wow. She is very gracious to let you use her kitchen. I am very guarded about mine and it is not so nice!
I tried to make that dish for some friends the night before you uploaded your video. I wasn‘t satisfied with my result, but seeing this I am ashamed of myself for trying to wing it. The dish is so much simpler, way more elegant and most importantly I am craving for that creaminess right now :D Thanks for your videos and especially the pasta series. Love it and I learned so much. Also it‘s so much more fun when you really understand the dish and be able to create such a nice meal with just a few simple ingredients.
P.S. I also love your ramen series ;)
The pasta water the restaurant uses has been cooking pasta for many orders; it is very starch rich. You can enrich your water a few ways; first, sacrificial pasta cooked into the water first to be disposed of, second, as you did, add a slurry of flour directly to the water (any starch will work), third, you can use a more powerful burner and cook in a smaller amount of water which will make a denser starchy water.
I've left the pot with the starchy water on the stove to cook another batch the following day (well, to save water), it ended up a day later as planned. Meanwhile , the starch has thickened alone bc of that delay. Kinda similar to animal glue. JFTR
Wow! What a kitchen!
I have started to cook my pasta almost like rice whenever possible. Takes a little longer but the water is do powerful and so reduced a creamy sauce had been achieved every single time. Instead of making a flower slurry I would just use a third of the volume in water for a single meal at home. Great video, I want to go out and buy some cheese now
One of the best cooking channel on youtube!
It is joy to watch your videos
Living on the French-Italian border has so given me the best of both worlds. Had to subscribe. Grazie e merci infiniment!
I'm not Italian so I guess I can watch
But I think because the curiosity is so great, the Italians will be the ones to watch even more, and I am an Italian. 😉
In more then 45 years of cooking am happy was taught early that ANY recipe is a starting point for your imagination & taste. Technic & ratios are what I follow and the advice from my mother .... 5 ingredients makes a dish add more and it better be a soup or a stew
As an Italian, like all Italians when told to not do something they still do it, I watched the video.
You were probably too generous with the starch water amount. You had the emulsion going, but you can see a soup in the big plate, instead of a cream.
I also feel like the restaurant's pasta is less cooked, so absorbs more liquid than his, this could also account for the "soup" instead of mantecatura.
This is such a convoluted way to prepare a simple pasta burro e parmigiano...
Holy moly! That kitchen is a dream! Absolutely gorgeous.
The pasta water...that is the key. thank you for debugging this for us. As many times as I have seen some Italian youtubers who shall remain nameless tell us to always use the pasta water as a thickening agent it never actually thckens the sauce when I have tried in the past...the note about adding starch intentionally to the water if you dont use that same water over and over again makes perfect sense. I will try this tomorrow.
i'm italian so hear a trick that could be useful:
You have to put more parmesan in order to recreate the "cream" and boost the flavor of the entire dish.
The recipe idea is a combination of the "pasta al burro" recipe (pasta with butter) and the "cacio e pepe" (Typical recipe also made in Rome, Pasta with cheese and black pepper) so don't be afraid to cover the plate with parmesan and then you can mix it with the fettuccine (the hard part is to have the perfect balance of cheese and water: you use cheese to make the dish less liquid and water to make it more liquid so you need to master the perfect amount of both) have fun!
There is no right or wrong way. Food and cuisine has always evolved and will continue to do so in the future
Les fettuccini Alfredo étaient mes pâtes préférée quand j'étais enfant. C'etait cependant un truc en sac acheter à l'épicerie. Ca faisait tres longtemps que j'en avais mangé. Ce soir j'ai exécuter la recette originale et je suis sous le choc. La recette est incroyable bonne. C'est un retour à l'enfance mais en vesion amélioré. Merci pour le partage!
No anger or frustration here, that is actually a great idea. Grazie Alex!
Alex, this is wonderful! The care, passion, and attention you put in your dishes is at the very least equal to that you put in the videos you make - which says something. Now, as an Italian, I'd like to add my bit: there is nothing wrong with adding thyme and pepper! They do match the rest of the ingredients quite well, in fact (although I might argue that fresh sage - salvia - would've been even better, but that's not the point). What most Italians tend to complain about (while often being, admittedly, quite caricatural and excessive) is other people completely distorting the nature of dishes, and namely adding (i) far too many ingredients and (ii) things that don't really mix together. Italian cuisine, above all, is about simplicity and balance, which we can afford due to the high quality of the produce. When I open pasta recipes from non-Italians and immediately see seven cloves of garlic and four spices mixed up, I immediately get alarmed. As your personal journey shows, the palate is like a muscle: it can be trained, and educated. So yes, everyone can (and should!) eat whatever they like, but there *are* things that more refined palates will generally dismiss, while appreciating taste that's alien to mouths less used to particular flavor. You wouldn't want eating lessons from someone who's only had junk food (or one type of food) their entire life, right? Here, your execution is borderline perfect, and your personal touch very well spot on and welcome. We love our traditions, sometimes too much, but it's the principles behind it we dearly hold on to. And you did great!
I like how you always manage to give me a good mood with your videos :) Thanks and happy cooking my friend!
The moment I finished this video I pulled out a pasta maker that I’ve had for 10 years and never used. Just happened to have half a block of parm that needed to be used. I’m sure I could’ve done better on the fettuccine, but the creaminess is out of this world. Thank you, Alex, for all that you do to inspire schlubs like me to cook things I’d never try otherwise. Still working on that omelet.
I'm italian and I decided to watch. That's how much I miss the pasta series
I am glad i held off trying to make this pasta myself until this video, i feel i have a better understanding of how it's made and how to make it for my family
I really think you read a lot of comments, since this video finally portrait the satisfaction of beeing somewhat completed.
The last series(pl.) always left me as a viewer with lack of fulfilment.
Really enjoyed this one. Keep this up,
Of course i understand the power of a good cliffhanger and how these series kept me craving for the next episodes.
Just wanted to highlight how soothing this change of narration was.
Don't forget your fork movements must include scraping the bottom of plate to get everything up from bottom! Looks great!
If you only use 00 flour your pasta is mush. You also need to put alot more dry flour around your pasta so your water is way more starchy.
That kitchen combined with fresh herbs outside give me boss music vibes.
I love how you improve on every video, that is very hard work since the first one. As a grandson of an italian immigrant I feel more connected to this pasta series, keep going!
You should try making "pasta al limone", simple but full of technique.
Also, cook two or three batches of pasta to get the water extra starchy, then try it.
Alex, instead of adding the flour and water mixture into the water, you couldve used very little water, just enough for the pasta to not stick together and cooked it, this creates a starch rich pasta water, or put your pasta in a pot and add boiling water to it (asian style) and keep it that way and not on the stove with heat which would be easier as there no fire below for the pasta to then stick on the bottom. Or you can do what u did, that also def works
I knew it was going to come down to the composition of the pasta water. Thank you for the technique to mimic it as that had alluded me as well.
Thyme and Black Pepper, excellent. Was begging you to add more starch to the emulsifier/cooking water and you did, this is about as close to perfection as we can hope to do!
Alex, you can cheat a little bit by blending a little bit of egg yolk into the butter and that way it emulsifies completely 100%
that's some carbonara trick right there
Too eggy
This is one of the reasons why many classic Italian pasta dishes don't work as well at home as they do in a restaurant. When making them at home, we cook pasta in clean water. When I'm was trying to recreate cacio e pepe, I experimented with adding potato or wheat starch to the pasta cooking water. This little thing makes the sauce really creamy without the use of cream.
Welcome back Alex! Your last video had me in tears! Cant wait to replace them with salivation!😊😊😊😊😊❤❤❤❤❤
That kitchen is dreamy 🤭
Well done Alex, brilliant idea how to increase “starchiness”. Had the same problem for a long time, now seems to be resolved!
A little bit of lemon zest would be a great addition to the original. Your second attempt looked like you got everything except too thick of noodles, but you admitted that already. Very well done. That is a very nice kitchen, especially having a french top stove is a great thing. When I built my kitchen, I made sure to have a french top stove and a proper wok burner. You really should consider having them in your new kitchen as well.
Alex, yes! This is the perfect mix of science and cooking. Keep it up! This is what everyone needs and frankly I assume everyone wants! C'est super fantastique!
There's a reason most people buy their pasta dried in bags/boxes and their sauce in jars. Pasta is hard dude! It's a matter of grams of flour, seconds of cooking, how many portions you boiled in the same water......it's such a simple thing, and yet so complex.
what a beautiful garden!
In my home we used dry pasta. We used extra parmigiano and used a metal bowl that was on the heat as a way to emulsify better.
This gives me the idea to try making the emulsion separately from the noodles e.g. using a blender on butter, pasta water, and parmesan, and then add that to the noodles like you would any sauce. What I'll do is plate the pasta, dump most of the water out of the pot, and make the emulsion in the pot with an immersion blender, then add the noodles back in.
No Italians were offended because you made it correctly, then decided to experiment without continuing to call it Alfredo.
Besides, we are not emotionally attached to Alfredo - it's what you eat when you run out of ingredients or when you are sick. Yours, however, looked amazing, and it actually made me want to eat it. Well done!
Pasta al Burro is my favourite weeknight meal. Has four ingredients with easy prep, takes about ten minutes to do (if you buy in the pasta), and is absolutely delicious.
As an Italian American I was thinking, “it needs pepper, and maybe herbs…” nah… they would kill me. 😂 he did it!
As another Italian American, we didn't eat Fettuccine Alfredo, ever, at all... Pasta Burro, yes, usually with some parsley. 😁
@@gregmuon Fettucine Afredo is a rich people's dish for restaurants. It wouldn't be made in your mama's kitchen, so that makes sense. It's always been more popular in America than in Italy though, Italians barely know the dish.
Adding pepper and herbs makes you just an American now. You got the boot from the boot.
@@ZhilBear Italians mostly despise Alfredo pasta
Man I hope you have a big Carhartt sponsorship because if not, you definetly deserve one.
Salut!
I knew You would add pepper from the start alex! Its just so you! Never change my man!🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Big fan here Alex, sono italiano e ti seguo da anni. Keep it going😉👏👍
Well you make the rolling loop look so easy but the tip about reducing the pasta roller down to 8 was a master stroke. My family now love the much thinner fettuccine and it inspired my wife to find a home made tomato sauce that even our kids rated. A very definite win… Thanks for all the content..
I was married to an Italian, my sons are Italian and I approve this video lol. Alex rules the fine cooking world.
Lol!!!! Mario & Luigi’s parents!!!
made this last night, it was delicious, thanks for the recipe :)
i find that the pasta rollers with their "1mm minimum" thickness can vary widely, especially with a low moisture dough. I have tried a 50 euro roller, and a 250 euro roller with similar results and the more expensive one felt a bit less like it would fall apart. Then my mom said: "What's wrong with finishing it off with a normal cake roller before you cut?" et ta-da! leaf-thin pasta with the surface area to volume ratio that allows for the melt-in-your-mouth feel.
I even made my own version of a Chinese seared and peppered beef dish that benefits wonderfully from the almost see-through pasta.
Oh wow, nice kitchen. The pasta looks delicious
Words cannot express how much I enjoyed watching this Alex
Riots and chaos in France and my dude Alex is just whipping up some mean fettuccine Alfredo lmfao, respect.
Your humility is very engaging.
The Italian in me for most of the time shouted: "Put some pepper in it!". When you did it at the end, I genuinely felt relieved. 😂
Excellent video Alex, thank you!
I've been waiting for this video since the one about the restaurant. Thanks a lot !
Oui une autre vidéo. Cette cuisine est fantastique 😮❤
burro e salvia. classica ricetta della nonna. il Timo mia nonna non lo avrebbe messo. bravissimo Alex. your videos are the best
An italian dish in the beautiful french countryside.
What a perfect match
The only thing I would add, would be a little bit of white pepper, and, a very tiny pinch of nutmeg, which will bring out the creaminess of the sauce. The starchy pasta water and butter make a form of béchamel sauce.. in the heavenly laden grated Parmesan.
The emulsion is more than just about the starch in the pasta water. It is also the butter. Buter itself is an emulsion, but not if it gets too hot, so another way to make this is to add cold chunks of butter as you toss it.
this is soothing for absolutely no reason
I'm not sure I could any pasta without fresh cracked pepper...nice job. Beautiful food.
Alex, I think they used more egg yolks than you did. Their dough was a darker yellow. I'm not sure how much (if any) difference that would make to the final texture or flavor/taste, but it's something to consider...
I'd say you got it nearly perfectly in the end... Well done & thanks for sharing!
More egg yolks would affect the colour but would also make the pasta more silky and have a stronger egg flavour. If you look in his 2nd dough he does add 2 or so extra yolks to the mixture so I personally believe it was more to do with the semolina.
They use tipo 0 (or fine) alex used coarse. Would have made a slight difference; the dough would have hydrated more due to the greater surface area to volume ratio of each of the finer flour grains. All in all very little difference. Maybe his egg yolks were just a little lighter colour to begin with :D
THAT STOVE!!
omg i want t!
Alex, awesome video as always. The only noticeable difference i saw would be the aggression in the mixing process. You went for a more delicate approach vs what you showed at the restaurant. Your noodles held their shape but from the restaurant view those looked almost broken down and part of the sauce.
That kitchen is what dreams are made of
As Italian I say you can add thyme, pepper, pineapple, sour cream and anything you want as long you know you are not making the original dish, but trying to innovate the tradition or make your own version. This awareness is a matter of respect of the culture and you have plenty of it!
Just consider a thing: classics are classics for a reason. Ask yourself why a recipe survived for generations unchanged
"generations"??
My mother is older than this dish.
And it is famous because famous people ate it and news papers picked up the story.
@@e.lycopersicon9720 I’m not talking about this particular dish, but in principle
using extra starch is actually a restaurant trick for cacio e pepe aswell. mix hot water and starch, till you get a goopy consistency, let it cool down, then mix that with cheese and pepper. that starch makes it WAY harder to break the emulsion by heating it too much. ive even seen people full on boil it after that, without the cheese breaking from the sauce.
So its a great trick for family sized portions, or prepreparing a paste for restaurant use.
ethan chowoski just make cornstarch slurry and put it in lol
This seems a lot easier than how I was taught to make Fettuccine Alfredo. We would make it in two steps. We would make a sauce with heavy cream, parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt, and a little bit of garlic. We would slowly bring it to temp to prevent the sauce from breaking. Then we would run thin fettuccine noodles made in house through it and onto the plate. Obviously this Italian's recipe would probably be the original. It seems more plausible that this would be the case historically due to it's simplicity and the way it removes some of the risk to a broken sauce. The recipe you showed us is a more high end recipe served individually for each customer. Whereas the recipe I was taught was also from an Italian owner. But was designed for fast bulk servings. It was made at 2pm to serve dinner at 4pm for a several hundred or so customers wanting this or other dishes(Pizza, Spaghetti, Mostacholi, Canoli, and a few other dishes like scampi). Our seating capacity was 80. We would flip 2 to 3 times per hour until close at 11pm. I miss that place. It was awesome. The owner died and it closed shop.
That’s standard in Germany for Spaghetti Carbonara bc cream is cheap and easier to handle.
Meanwhile, you can find (Italian)Restaurants that offer "Carbonara Originale" doing it properly (while I doubt that they use Guanciale/Pancetta but the lower priced "Bauchfleisch" instead).
I tried to make this last week. The pasta was nice, but the sauce never emulsified properly. You've inspired me to try again.