Penne Alfredo

Ingredients (4 large servings):

• 500g penne pasta
• 500g peeled frozen shrimp
• 500g alfredo sauce like screenshot below¹
• 250g white button mushrooms
• 100ml fresh cream
• 50g of Parmesan cheese
• 1 large onion
• Butter (for cooking)
• Salt and pepper
• Little bitta garlic paste (nice to have for flavour)
• Parsley (nice to have to garnish)

Method:

1. Boil pasta in a pot on one of your stove tops. The pasta should be ready in about 10 minutes and we will be preparing the alfredo sauce simultaneously from step #2. Stir and check the pasta pot especially towards the end. Make sure it doesn’t get too soft because it will get added to warm alfredo sauce later. We will be grabbing a few pasta pieces towards the end to check when it’s ready. It will reach a point when it’s just a little bit crunchier than how we like to eat them. That’s when we know it’s time to take it off the heat completely.
2. While #1 is happening, heat up a non-stick fry pan on medium high on your other stove top. Slice the onion and mushrooms (simultaneously, if we’re fast with knives or beforehand, if not).
3. Add a bitta butter to the pan and then sliced onion. It should be hot enough for the onions to sizzle. Add salt and pepper and let that cook for a minute or two. Basically onion shouldn’t burn but it should not smell raw either.
4. Then add garlic paste (nice to have) and stir.
5. Add the shrimp. Adding shrimp makes it a bit moist. The mushrooms (we add later) will soak up some of it. Stir for a couple of minutes. Basically shrimp should be on the verge of losing its pinkness and also we don’t want it to shrink too much. That’s when we reduce heat to medium low. Also, refer to #1.
6. Add mushrooms to pan and stir for a minute or 2. Also, refer to #1.
7. The pan is ready for the alfredo sauce from the jar. Drop it in there and stir gently now. This is a good time to taste the sauce. Also, refer to #1.
8. Reduce heat on the pan to low now. Utilize the fresh cream only to control how runny we want our alfredo. This might mean using less than 100ml as recommended in the ingredients. The pan needs to stay on low from here on. Also, refer to #1.
9. Add a bitta parmesan to the pan and fold not stir. Sauce is ready and it’s on low heat so if #1 is not done, it’s time to focus on that until done.
10. Strain the pasta, transfer onto the pan with the alfredo and fold. This is also a good time to add a bitta parsley if you choose to.
11. Serve onto plates and/or storage container. Garnish with some more parmesan and parsley to make it look green, fresh and creamy at the same time.

Few things to note:

• An easy alternative to the store bought alfredo sauce would be to:
  • use more fresh cream at step #8
  • add a table spoon of butter
  • use more parmesan at step #9
  • let the sauce simmer longer
  • these are the essential ingredients of alfredo sauce
• Penne’s are pretty awesome because the alfredo sauce can go in the tubes and sit inside and the flavor can settle in nicely. Makes the pasta taste nice over several days for storing in the fridge and microwaving. Another popular choice to go with alfredo sauce is fettuccine. Fettuccine strands and a fork make for an awesome mop for clearing alfredo from a plate!
• Same recipe applies for chicken (thighs especially are delicious). Chicken does not shrink like shrimp so only half as much covers it. It takes more time to cook though and may need dicing thus making it a more taxing recipe.

Available at Countdown / New Worlds

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