What are the hallmarks of a traditional alfredo sauce?

Question

There are many recipes for alfredo sauce, using ingredients from pesto and soy milk to low-fat milk and cream cheese. What is the gold standard for alfredo? What properties indicate a traditional Italian-style alfredo sauce? What type of pasta is it traditionally paired with?

Asked by KatieK

Answer

According to Cooking The Roman Way by David Downie, Fettucine Alfredo is a traditional Roman recipe called "pasta del cornuti" (cuckold's pasta). What either Alfredo Di Lelio III, or Mario Mozzetti, depending on whom you believe, invented in 1914, was the dramatic tableside preparation of Fettuccine Alfredo, which is what made the dish a hit with visiting Americans in the 20's and 30's.

The tableside preparation is really what makes Fettuccine Alfredo what it is: the hot pasta is tossed with the butter and cheese in front of the diner, and then served to them immediately.

Again, according to Downie, the only ingredients of Fettuccine Alfredo are egg fettuccine, lots of butter, lots of Parmegiano-Reggiano, and (if necessary) a little salt.

Recipes which add cream or milk are Americanized recipes designed to allow restaurants to hold orders of Alfredo for a long time under heat lamps (and turn it into a gooey pasty mess). Italians, from my experience visiting Italy, rarely put cream or milk on pasta (a real Italian could speak up here).

Downie has a fun 3-page digression about the ongoing lawsuits between the Roman families who claim to own the name. It's worth a read.

Alan Davidson, predictably, says nothing about Fettuccine Alfredo. The Glorious Pasta of Italy likewise does not cover the dish.

Wikipedia supports Downie's story, except only attributing Di Lelio, and adding the tidbit that Di Lelio apparently called it "Fettuccine al burro" (fettuccine with butter), and the Alfredo name was appended later when it was copied in the USA. Wikipedia also says butter and cheese only, on fettuccine pasta.

So, to answer your question and the questions asked in the comments:

1. Fettuccine Alfredo is an Italian dish, if more popular in the USA than in Italy.
2. It is a variation of a traditional Italian dish.
3. In its traditional form, it has only egg pasta, butter, and cheese.
4. The pasta for Alfredo is egg fettuccine.

Answered by FuzzyChef

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Looks curdled, but it wasn't - my bad alfredo

Question

I made some alfredo sauce (evoo, heavy cream, homemade pesto, Parmesan cheese) and decided to throw in some chopped tomato. Instantly, it separated. Was it the acidity of the tomato or the extra water coming in from the tomato? How can I get tomato in my alfredo, is it at all possible?

Answer

Emulsions aren't necessarily all about oil vs. water. Alfredo sauce is actually an emulsion of cream and butter, both of which contain varying amounts of both water and fat, and in many cases, if you bought them from a supermarket rather than a farm, also a fair amount of emulsifiers.

Any emulsion is going to be temperamental and not respond well to sudden changes in dispersion. The most important thing to do with one is incorporate new ingredients slowly! If you just dump in a bunch of watery tomatoes, or anything else with enough liquid (water or fat), it's almost certainly going to separate.

Even if you incorporate very slowly and thoroughly, if you upset the balance too much, it might still break. There's no way to know the exact amount you can add without experimenting, unless somebody else has already documented it (not likely).

Sometimes, if your emulsion just creams (see my related answer about mayonnaise), you can restore it to its former glory with sufficient agitation. If it's actually broken then you're in trouble.

Anyway, my advice to you would be - if you want a rosé sauce, then make a rosé sauce, don't waste a lot of time and perfectly good Reggiano cheese trying to start from an Alfredo recipe. I've made a great many tomato and/or pesto cream sauces and the general rule with these (including Alfredo) is that you always start with any oil and vegetables (garlic, tomatoes/paste, etc.), then add your seasonings, then add the cream and slowly reduce it. You don't need or want butter at this point, its flavour will be completely overwhelmed by the other ingredients and it therefore just adds instability.

You might also want to consider using sun-dried tomatoes for a stabler and probably tastier result; they essentially classify as a solid as far as emulsions are concerned, so it's not much different from incorporating pepper or dried herbs. You could just make a regular pesto cream sauce and whisk in some sun-dried tomatoes near the end.

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