Not-So-Basic Fettuccini Alfredo Recipe

I was 18 years old and on my own, a half-starved and broke college student living in my first apartment in Glassboro, NJ. My Dad was in town for a business meeting and coming over for dinner. My Dad liked “fine” things. What could I make that would impress him? What could I place in front of him that would say I’m all grown up and look how worldly I have become?

The internet didn’t exist at the time, so I trolled the only aisle in my grocery store that I could afford – the pasta aisle. And there I found my first box of Fettuccini (wow! how gourmet!) with a little recipe on the back. There would be no ramen noodles for Dad on this night! This is creamy, rich upscale stuff here. I spent ¾ of my weekly food budget to buy all the ingredients and some fresh green beans for this all important meal.

Well, as it turns out, Dad made Fettuccini Alfredo all the time – huh, guess I wasn’t the worldly and refined person I was pretending to be. He looked at my recipe and the available ingredients and said you have to change this part – pointing to the amount of cream. The rest is history and this is how I mastered the art of excellent Fettuccini Alfredo.

The flat, wide shape of Fettuccini pasta originated in Rome in the early to mid 20th century and means Little Ribbons. Originally the recipe contained only Parmesan cheese and butter. When the dish became popular in the Unites States, cream was incorporated.

When my friends come to visit, they always request this meal. This is one of the few dishes my insanely picky children will eat voluntarily. Add some shrimp and scallops sautéed in garlic and wine or small pieces of sautéed chicken tenderloin for added protein. Feeling nostalgic? Add some freshly grated nutmeg to the sauce. There are a million ways to dress up this basic dish. Want to make your own pasta from scratch? Here is my favorite recipe.

I have kept this recipe secret for years because it is the only thing I can claim greatness in. Once my mother-in-law asked me for the recipe and I was about to give it to her, when I thought, what? No! This must remain my legacy! I mean, I have no great claim to fame and I don’t even particularly like my mother-in-law. Why would I share it with her? Well, you get older, kinder and wiser – and my mother-in-law doesn’t surf the web – so maybe it’s time to share.

Fettuccini Alfredo is a cheap, easy and quick meal. My one word of advice is this – get the best Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parmesan in the US) cheese you can get your hands on and grate it yourself. If it comes from Italy, scoop it up because it’s the real deal. You have to grate the cheese yourself, thereby adding the love, to make this recipe work.

Buon Appetito!

Ready in 25 minutes

Serves 6 people

Ingredients

½ cup (1 stick) salted butter
¾ cup heavy whipping cream
8 oz. freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 pound dry Fettuccini noodles
2-3 tablespoons chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
1/8 teaspoon white pepper

Preparation

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Cook your noodles to package instructions (usually 9 minutes for a la dente).
While your pasta is cooking, in a medium sauce pan over medium heat, begin to melt the butter. Add heavy whipping cream and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon for 3-4 minutes to incorporate. Reduce temperature slightly and add in the freshly grated parmesan cheese. Continue to stir until cheese begins to melt and incorporate, about 3 to 4 minutes more. Stir in white pepper to taste and chopped flat leaf parsley. The entire process should take around 8 minutes.
Drain pasta well in a colander and place in a large pasta bowl.
Immediately pour the cream sauce over the mixture and combine well, making sure all those lovely strands are tossed and coated with cheesy goodness.
Serve immediately because good pasta waits for no one!

November 24, 2017May 11, 2018

Recipe for your left-over Thanksgiving turkey: Indonesian Lontong and Turkey Curry

Since I talked about Thai food last week, this week I feel compelled to bring you Indonesian food. And because it’s Thanksgiving week, I’m going to honor the turkey as well.

While I never grew up in Indonesia, a country made up of over 17,000 islands, I was raised on the food. I was a fourth generation Indonesian in Kampong Java, an Indonesian enclave in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. Our family house is a stone’s throw from a mosque, Masjid Java. In a country where glittering gold Buddhist temples dot the landscape, living next to a mosque with a multi-tier roof mimicking Javanese architecture was pretty special.

Our neighbors were also Indonesian-Thais who had been there for generations. Most everyone has two names: a Muslim name used at home and a Thai name used at school and work. On special occasions, we dress in Indonesian batik and kabaya, a blouse made of intricate lace.

While I was growing up, life in the neighborhood revolved around special occasions: births, weddings, birthdays, Qur’an graduation, deaths. Before Bangkok exploded into the metropolis it is today, before 8-foot concrete fences were erected between houses, I remember a time when the women of Kampong Java would get together to cook meals for these special events. They worked together to cut meat, vegetables, and heaps of garlic. One would handle the fryer, another manned the rice, while another took care of the curry. The sound of chatting and laughing could be heard a block away, quieted only when the mosque announced the azaan, the call to prayer.

The food that came out of their kitchens was gorgeous. There were boiled eggs dyed red on top of yellow rice for birthdays, aromatic goat curry for the Feast of Sacrifice, and lontong with vegetable coconut curry for Eid al-Fitr. Lontong is traditionally made by pressing rice soaked in water into a cylinder made of banana leaf, and boiling until cooked. Once done, the rice would be unwrapped and cut into pieces to eat with mild curry as a main dish or drizzled with syrupy brown sugar and topped with grated coconut as dessert. Growing up here when I did taught me about the beauty of food, tradition, and comradery played to the background of Muslim and Buddhist chants.

The problem with that is I am ruined. Nothing would ever measure up to the perfection of my memory when it comes to Indonesian food. And there are no restaurants that serve lontong within a 50-mile radius. The dilemma is very much like an American looking for Thanksgiving turkey in Thailand (the position we were in in 2016).

So, what would a person who doesn’t like to cook do when she craves food from her memory that she cannot get in San Diego County? She makes it up with the help of a tiny Indonesian food section at 99 Ranch. And like most food I make, this does not require too much effort.

Ingredients:

Lontong

Uncooked rice cake (Nona brand)

Curry (lodeh)

Turkey –1 lb cubed (or use left-over Thanksgiving turkey cut into pieces)
Lodeh vegetable stew sauce (Bamboe brand) – 2 packs
Coconut cream (Mae Ploy brand) – 1 can
Dry minced garlic – 1 tbs
Fish sauce (Phu Quoc brand if available) – 1 Tbs
Water – 2 cans (use coconut cream can to measure)
Bamboo shoots (Aroy-D brand in slices) – 1 can
French green beans – 20 cut into 1/3 length
Cabbage – ½ a head cut into strips
5 kefir lime leaves – torn for fragrance
4 boiled eggs – halved to top the curry
Fried shallots to top

Instructions:

60 minutes cooking time for rice

Follow instruction on the bag

20 minutes cooking time for curry

In a pot, mix 1/3 can of coconut with 1 package of Lodeh curry sauce and dry minced garlic

Once chicken is half done, add the remaining coconut cream and mix thoroughly

Bring to boil

Add 1 can of water using the coconut cream can

Add another package of Lodeh curry sauce

Add bamboo shoots, cabbage, and green beans

Add 1 more can of water – consistency should be almost soupy

Add 1 Tbs fish sauce

Bring to boil

Add kefir lime leaves

Taste then add more fish sauce if you want it to be saltier or add more water if you want it to be milder

To serve: cut the rice cake into cubes, add curry and fried shallots

November 16, 2017May 11, 2018

A story about Thai chicken green curry (with recipe)

When I tell strangers I’m Thai, one of the first things they tell me is that they love Thai food. My reply is usually, ‘so do I’. What’s not to like about Thai food?

I grew up in Bangkok, a crossroad of Asian cuisines. For many years I was raised by one of the best cooks in the world – my paternal grandmother, Yupa. She was part Indonesian, part Chinese, and part Thai (although I’m not sure of the percentages). And her cooking was as diverse as her blood.

She was always in the kitchen preparing meals for her family using fresh ingredients bought at the wet market each morning. She would give me a precise list of what to buy, down to the color and number of chili peppers. And I would know by looking at it what we’d have for dinner.

To a child of eleven, the wet market in the morning was like a perfectly choreographed musical. Sellers sang the names of their goods. Bells tinkled as bicycles weave through the crowd. Steam rose from metal drums filled with soy milk and porridge. Stalls lined up one after another in an explosion of colors and textures.

Each stall was specialized. I would have to go to five, sometimes, six stalls to get all the ingredients for one dish. One for chicken and beef. A couple for vegetables and herbs. One for shrimp paste. A store just for coconut. Everything was as fresh as they can be.

Many of my clearest childhood memories are from that wet market. The sound of cleaver severing meat from bones. The bright saffron color of monks’ robes. The scent of coconut meat going through the grinder. I can still smell it. Creamy and earthy, with a tinge of burnt wood.

Curry was one of my grandmother’s staple dishes. To make the curry paste, she would wrap shrimp paste in banana leaf and grill it over an open flame before blending it with a mixture of garlic, shallots, galangal, and chili pepper I had pounded with stone mortar and pestle. For coconut milk, she would massage the ground coconut with water until the liquid turn opaque white. She did not follow instructions from a cookbook. There was none in our house. She cooked with her taste buds and her talented hands.

Despite having spent countless hours in the kitchen as a child, I don’t like to cook. Unlike my grandmother, I don’t have the fortitude nor a lot of time and energy to spend in the kitchen. But I love to eat and I have a good taste palate. So, when duty calls, I go for dishes that are high in flavors and low in fussiness – those that meet the 80/20 Rule. If I can get 80% satisfaction from 20% input, the dish will be a part of my repertoire.

One of my signature dishes is chicken green curry. And it’s pretty awesome. I have shared the recipe with several friends and it has become a staple in their homes as well. It’s not my grandmother’s green curry but you can make it in 20 minutes. I have even made it in 15 minutes under duress.

Without the luxury of a wet market, I use canned coconut milk, curry paste, and bamboo shoots (picture above). They can easily be found at 99 Ranch or Vietnamese market. I highly recommend going during the week. They’re zoos on the weekends.

Ingredients:

Cooking oil – 1 Tbs
Garlic – minced 3-4 cloves
Green curry paste (Mae Ploy brand) – 2 Tbs or more
Coconut cream (Mae Ploy brand)
Boneless Chicken breast – 1 ½ – 2 lbs chopped into small pieces
Fish sauce (Phu Quoc brand if available) – 3 Tbs
Chicken broth – ½ can
Bamboo shoots (Aroy-D brand in strips) – 1 can drained and rinsed
Peas and carrots – ¼ bag frozen
Thai eggplants – 10 fresh and quartered (if available)
Red bell peppers – 1 sliced into strips
Brown sugar – ½ teaspoon
1-2 sprigs Basil leaves and 6 kefir lime leaves – whole leaves (if available)

20 minutes cooking time

In a pot, heat oil and cook garlic until light brown

Add 2 Tbs green curry paste, mix with garlic

Add 1 can of coconut cream, mix thoroughly with curry paste until pale green in color and allow to boil

Add chicken and 2 Tbs fish sauce, reserve the rest to taste

Once boil add ½ can of chicken broth

Add Bamboo shoots, Thai eggplants, peas and carrots

Sprinkle in brown sugar

Taste, then add more curry paste if you want it to be spicier and more fish sauce if you want it to be saltier, or add more chicken broth if you want it to be milder

Add sliced red bell pepper

Let boil once more, then sprinkle with basil leaves and kefir lime leaves

Enjoy!

I’d love to hear your experience in making this dish in the comment section.