A few nights ago I happened to watch an episode of Lidia’s Italy (on PBS) and she made pasta and this cream sauce with fresh lemons. I had everything I needed so that became dinner. The recipe is also in Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes.
A year or so ago someone sent me a pasta machine and pasta drying rack as a thank you for something. At the time I thought “Who has time to make pasta?” But it turns out to be quite easy, especially with a food processor to mix everything. I used the recipe for Lidia’s Maccheroni alla chitarra but I used the linguine option of my hand-cranked pasta machine. It came out fabulous! I set half out to dry.
And half I curled into little nests and froze for another day.
In addition to my hens’ eggs for the pasta, I used my homegrown lemons for the lemon and cream sauce.
Pasta with Lemon and Cream Sauce
Ingredients
- 1.5 Tbs butter
- 2 tsp grated lemon zest about 2 lemons’ worth
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 3 Tbs lemon juice about 1 lemon’s worth
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup cream
- 1/2 pound pasta, something like linguine
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
- olive oil to dress
Instructions
- Start bringing a large pot of salted water to boil to cook the pasta in.
- In a large skillet, melt the butter and stir in the lemon zest, cooking a minute until sizzlings. Add the white wine, lemon juice and salt, stirring. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook a few minutes.
- Uncover the pan and slowly pour in the cream, whisking it into the sauce. Cook 2-3 minute, stirring, until it’s a consistency you like.
- Turn the heat down to low on the sauce and start cooking your pasta.
- When it’s just done, lift the pasta out of the water with tongs and place into the simmering sauce. (Bring back to a simmer if it’s stopped.) Toss the pasta until it’s coated. Add some of the pasta water if needed.
- Turn off the heat, stir in the Parmesan cheese and add a drizzle of olive oil.
- Serve more cheese and oil at the table if you’d like.
made this tonight… was expecting it to be creamier than it was, maybe mine didn’t turn out right, perhaps due to the fact that I was using a hot plate and not a gas stove (harder to control the heat) . Really like the idea of lemon cream sauce and will probably try to cook again when I have access to a gas stove!