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[Question] Any thoughts on why our alfredo didn't emulsify properly? (piefed.social)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/cooking@lemmy.world
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Tonite we tried making pasta alfredo for the first time. We used the (recently trending?) bowl method so we

  1. Cooked the pasta (about ~8oz of cellentani/cavatappi)
  2. Scooped it all directly from the water into a big metal bowl
  3. Added about ~3tbsp butter, cut into separate pads
  4. Stir/shook it all til the butter melted (I thought we did it pretty vigorously!)
  5. Slowly added in ~1c of parmesan that we'd grated ourselves while continuing to stir & shake
  6. Noticed that the cheese was becoming a bit stuck together/gloopy despite adding it slowly
  7. Tried adding some more butter & pasta water while stirring and shaking
  8. 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! :)

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[–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

Parmesan, in particular, is a really hard cheese to emulsify, mainly just cause it's dry. "Traditional" Alfredo (as in from the original restaurant that gave it it's name), was made with young parmesan. To be parmesan (well, Parmigiano Reggiano), it has to be aged at least 12 months, but at least where I live, it's usually sold aged at least 24 months. This means drier, and even more difficult to emulsify.

If you can get really young parm, use that, and also make sure to grate it really finely. I often get lazy and grate it on my box grater, and it won't work well. It only works well if I use a microplane.

If you care about traditional ingredients, but not methodology, you can pull some pasta water off to the side, and keep it hot, but not boiling, and stir in the parmesan bit by bit. It helps greatly if you add sodium citrate to the water before adding the cheese. After the cheese has turned into a sauce, you can throw in some butter.

Parmesan doesnt really "melt" since it is too low moisture. To make a sauce, you are basically trying to dissolve the proteins into a liquid, which takes some time, and you can't rush it by cranking up the heat.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago

    Ah okay, that makes sense. The parm we got was marked "aged over 10 months" and it did seem a bit less dry than some of the more aged ones we've used in the past. We did just use the smallest side on the box grater though, not a microplane, so it's definitely possible that it needed to be more finely grated. And that's a great tip about just doing it w the pasta water at first, then adding in the butter, that sounds like a safer way to do it. And I've heard folks talking about using the sodium citrate in cheese dishes before but I've never actually tried it... Thanks so much! :)

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