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Pasta, butter, cheese

"the ultimate 'I can’t believe this came from only that'" Alison Roman

"Heat the butter in a skillet until it's as dark as you want, toss in some sage (if you'd like), then add lemon juice. Ta-da!" J. Kenji López-Alt


It actually doesn't look that amazing does it in this picture? I have others though which are more artistically tempting in appearance - later. This one is the lead photo however, because it is today's inspiration - my daily New York Times recipe - Pasta with brown butter and parmesan - Ali Slagle/New York Times. Alas it's behind a pay wall, however, so you won't be able to access it unless you want to subscribe.


But never mind, because it's super simple. Cook your pasta. In a frying pan melt, then swirl butter until it goes nutty brown but before it burns - if it burns, says the author - throw it away! Then you add your pasta, stir, add cheese, stir, add pasta water stir - done. Quantities? 1 pound spaghetti, 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, 1 cup Parmesan and up to 1/2 cup pasta water - add a tablespoon at a time, until the sauce is glossy. Yet another example by the way of how parochial the Americans are in that the quantities are not also given in grams. Serve with black pepper and more Parmesan. Well it's really a kind of cacio e pepe. Which I have done before, I'm sure although I now can't find it. Another pasta dish which is amazingly tasty even though it consists of just pepper, cheese and black pepper.


It's a simple sauce, and now I'm sitting here wondering what else I can say other than provide a few examples - which is probably a bit boring - although I shall in a moment. I guess the main thing I can think of - other than that I cannot find a reference to it as classic dish with a name - is that the main ingredient is butter and so it is very likely that this is not a peasant dish, because butter is a costly ingredient - and apparently not much used in cooking until the Renaissance, and even then it was often used, in the form of decoration, as butter sculptures on banquet tables, rather than for cooking.


I suppose farmers would have had butter although maybe they turned their milk into cheese rather than butter. As for the sage, that is also a little curious as it is "A herb that in many countries can’t find its place, but that in Italy is an absolute queen." (Tuscookany) I gather the Romans used it medicinally, as did herbalists throughout Europe, but not many use it prolifically as do the Italians, for cooking. It's such an overpowering herb, that it is not one you use in combination with others.


There is a sauce, however, called Salsa al burro e salvia in which the butter is browned and the sage leaves cooked until crispy. So perhaps this particular pasta dish is just pasta with that particular sauce - like pasta with tomato sauce. This example - Pasta al burro e salvia from Letitia Clark/The Guardian is an example and a much creamier one than most. More pasta water?


However, as always simple is not necessarily easy as Alison Roman says:


"Unfortunately, it does require some technique here (the simplest things often do), in that the sauce is only made with some browned butter, finely grated parmesan, pasta water and not much else (not unsimilar to how a carbonara comes together)"


But I see I have jumped the gun a bit because my original recipe - and several others - do not have the sage. Stepping back yet another step we have just butter and cheese - not browned, as shown in Rachel Roddy's Fettucine with butter and parmesan


It may at first seem to be super simple - just melt some butter and let it brown and then pour over the pasta with some cheese. Well Rachel Roddy does not even do that. She quotes:


"my landlady Giuliana, who is convinced that no pasta with cheese and fat (cacio e pepe, parmesan and butter, or guanciale and pecorino) needs to involve a technique. Simply put them in a bowl and – she mimes two forks, moving her arms up and down energetically – giri, giri, giri, turn, turn, turn."


And then she gives two methods - in the first you mash the butter in a bowl, pour over the pasta and toss with cheese. In the second you melt the butter in a frying pan into which you pour the pasta, top with cheese and 'turn, turn, turn." I'm guessing a little pasta water would help too. Now this, really, really simple pasta dish I do recommend because I sometimes have it with leftover, reheated pasta for lunch.


I was somewhat surprised that Nigel did not have simple burnt butter options, and I have no idea why this would be. However, in line with Rachel Roddy he did have a very simple Pasta with hot butter and herbs, from his first book Real Fast Food which you can find on a website called Küchenlatein. Here you just melt some butter and cook a tiny bit of onion in it before adding lots of herbs - toss your pasta in it and that's it.


Next up in the simplicity stakes is one from chef Nino Soccali on the delicious. website - Gogges pasta with burnt butter and salted ricotta, although the parmesan has morphed into salted ricotta, and he also tells you how to make a slightly complicated pasta. Pretty simple though if you use pasta from a packet. Similarly Kitchn just adds some Panko breadcrumbs with its Brown butter parmesan pasta



Brown butter and sage, are however pretty common, so here are two which add the sage leaves - Butter and sage gnudi - Jamie Oliver/Serious Eats and 10 minute brown butter sauce for pasta - Burnt Butter Table. J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats, complicates the thing - like many I should say - by adding pumpkin to the mix with his Pasta with butternut squash and sage brown butter but it's worth checking out because he gives a lot of advice as to how to make sure your butter doesn't burn and so on. Because the browning of the butter is the really tricky thing.



And then there those who, like many of us, believe in adding a squeeze of lemon to almost everything - and Ottolenghi adds nuts too - but then others also add toasted breadcrumbs and other crunchy things - Tagliolini with walnuts and lemon is his version. The UK version of delicious. has a recipe for Silk handkerchief pasta with dill, brown butter and lemon - dill being a slightly unusual herb here; Alison Roman is somewhat more classic with her Lemon pepper pasta with browned butter and Andy Barahgani on the Bon Appétit website slices his lemons for Pasta with brown butter, whole lemon and parmesan - depending on how many times you have visited the Bon Appétit website you may not be able to access this one without subscribing.




And last of all, Spicy miso brown butter pasta - Anna Chwistek/Food 52 which in many ways seems the most tempting of the lot, but then that's the temptation of always adding stuff. A tendency of mine. Simple is really difficult in so many ways is it not? There's the fact that most simple things, are not really that simple in that they require care in the making, and the other is that we just can't believe that three ingredients - butter, cheese pasta can provide a taste sensation and so we pile on nuts, chile, breadcrumbs ... Maybe even sage and lemon are too much.


A good thing to try, however, if your fridge is empty, because you probably will have cheese, butter and pasta to hand.



POSTSCRIPTS

I promised photographs of my yesterday quiche and here they are - really not that good, but people it was pretty tasty in spite of those peas, pushing the custard apart, and falling from the holes they made. I suppose the quiche fresh from the oven looked a bit spotty, but never mind say I.



A walk back from the shops today - so photographs of H - hills, a hedge, a hole, the Eltham Hotel and the Eltham Historical Society. But below - H is for Home. Yes it is.

YEARS GONE BY

January 16

2024 - How basic can you get? Bread sauce - sort of appropriate really as a coda to today's post

2020 - Nothing

2019 - Nothing

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a day ago
Rated 4 out of 5 stars.

Four stars only if it is served with a green salad otherwise it might have yo be considered fast food missing the Greens, means it is not part of the Mediterannean food group that is good fir you! We always have a delicious tossed salad where you get the bonus of vergin olive oil! Whoeee!

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