I can not stop thinking about my alfredo sauce.
Huh? Yeah that's really what's keeping me up tonight.
No nightmares, no 5:00 FFXI party, no pining oversexed painful boner
There's no snap to it, no brightness, just a level- smooth richness.
There needs to be a brief flirtation with a vegetable. A mild crisp sweetness.
And I just can't get past putting bell peppers or banana peppers in my alfredo.
Now serving a yellow bell pepper is a bit on the nose, a bit too italian, a bit too damn... SIMPLE. Even if I served ribbons or rings it'd be too clunky. Not fork friendly. I can't have an unfriendly dish!!!
No... no... the right choice was my first choice, and there's just a smidge more heat and sweet to the banana pepper. Rings of them. Yes. With semolina macoroni.
I'll try to use butter over olive oil and add more garlic, but what might work out even better is a mince of shallot in the center.
Oh ... GOD... what if they don't have it anywhere... they did last month.
Am I really getting to the point of growing my own produce? Availability of some of my cravings has driven me up the wall in this city.
We'll hunt it down. Make the dish, add fresh uncooked medallions of banana pepper, a tiny pile of minced shallot, a few grinds of pepper and... do I want to do this with hamburger, ground lamb? pork? ... wait, I loathe ground meat. I cude use cubed instead.
Damn your versatility italian sauces!!! DAMN YOU!!!
I guess what I'm saying is... this is a food blog. And yes, it did take me a while to get the basics of my alfredo sauce down well enough to feel comfortable with fucking with it.
It was an olive oil/drippings (depended on what meat I was preparing, but the dry chorizo I used last month was outfucking standing) whisked into a light rue (sometimes orange rue because of the chorizo spices GOD that shit is awesome) with minced garlic and fresh pepper, a splash of D-milk (now I'm using a cream-top whole) and about a cup of parmesan.
Where does this sauce need to go? Up. Way up. Like... oregano basil and thyme, shallots, butter, and maybe even a left hook from a bit of blank cheese for that sour sharpness only soft young cheese can provide, not to say that the main ingredient wouldn't still be parm.
I could totally eat this with zucchini spears and peppers BIG slices of peppers in a ribbon thin fresh fettucini.
or ladle onto squash raviolis...
Hell, I could put any and all of my sauces on ravioli.... god damned interchangeable GENIUS ITALIANS!!!
R/W/G what can I say?
Now, I've never made a tomato sauce, and I don't know if I ever will as I've found several nationally available tomato sauces to my liking (even if they sometimes require slight modification)
but I have made a few kinky pestos, and I do still have some soy beans in the fridge... I think you know where I'm going with this. But umame pesto is another day and another post.
My bagguette is ready to grind, ground pork is still frozen... and its 8 hours to lunch. I think I've got everything I need for version 2 of this sauce, can't wait for version 3 when I've got fresh herbs to incorporate.
... I do have shitake mushrooms...