You get a bag of pappardelle.
You slice up about 6 ounces of prosciutto.
You pour a pint of heavy cream into a pan, sprinkle in some black pepper and a tiny bit of salt, and reduce it over low heat. While it reduces, you can boil pasta water/cook pasta and give a very quick steam to some three-inch-long segments of fresh asparagus (which you should be very careful not to overcook).
This is one of those fun dishes that's really easy to time. Pasta water goes on, steaming water goes on, wash and cut asparagus, put on cream to reduce, steam asparagus, put pasta in boiling water. Right before you take the pasta off, add the asparagus and prosciutto to the cream - don't add it too soon or else the prosciutto will cook, which is just weird - and bang! Dinner. Oh, add parmesan or romano or what have you.
I do realize that even the asparagus can't keep this from essentially being a plate of carbs soaked in heavy cream. Which brings me to my next point: there's no way to keep the sauce from being runny, so I recommend serving with a nice crusty bread, and using that to sop up the extra cream. I also recommend serving this with Lactaid. Because being mildly lactose intolerant (which I am) is no excuse. And a salad might not be out of order, either. You know, if you care about your arteries.
Looks great! I usually add a bit of parmesan to my cream sauces (if I'm not going to make a roux), and it usually helps with the runniness. It also helps speed up that artery clogging. (And now my brain has made a pun and I'm imagining a bunch of dancing arteries in wooden shoes.) Woot!
ReplyDeleteYou and your terrible puns. It took me forever to get that one, even though for most of my childhood, my mother was in a clogging group and I was frequently dragged to rehearsals.
ReplyDeleteI blame having been up at 6:45 for the past three days for writing center training, plus four hours today poring over Boxoffice from 1947. Which got me through February. Did you know each issue of Boxoffice was over 100 pages long in 1947? I DO NOW!
...actually, it would be really interesting to go back and read their coverage of the then-forthcoming Paramount Decree. There was a lot of it. Me, I'm just trying to figure out where ol' Bess actually went on her nationwide tour. So far I've confirmed Memphis, Washington DC, Chicago, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
I'm going to bed before this comment gets any longer.