Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken and Mushrooms

A simple dish that ended up on menus everywhere. Fifteen minutes of prep, fifteen minutes of cooking.

A note on what it actually is: the original Alfredo, made by Alfredo di Lelio in Rome in 1908, had three ingredients — fettuccine, butter and Parmesan. No cream, no chicken, no mushrooms. What most of the world now calls Alfredo is an American adaptation, and Italians largely do not recognize it.

That does not make it a bad dish. It just means this is an American plate with an Italian name, and it is worth knowing which one you are making.

Serves 4

Ingredients

12 oz fettuccine
8 oz chicken breast
5–6 button mushrooms
3 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons olive oil or butter
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup grated Parmesan
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Salt

To serve

Chopped parsley and extra Parmesan

Method

Use the right pasta

Fettuccine or tagliatelle. The flat ribbon shape holds a cream sauce in a way that tubes and shells do not — this is the one substitution that genuinely changes the dish.

Cook the pasta

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a rolling boil. It should taste of the sea.

Cook the pasta to al dente, a minute less than the package says. It will finish cooking in the sauce.

Before you drain it, reserve a cup of the cooking water. Do not skip this — it is the most important step in the recipe and the one almost everyone misses.

Make the sauce

Slice the mushrooms and mince the garlic.

Heat the oil or butter in a wide pan and sauté the mushrooms until they have released their water and it has cooked away. Only then add the garlic, and cook for another minute — garlic added at the start burns while the mushrooms are still weeping.

Cut the chicken into thin strips and add it to the pan. Cook until just done. Thin strips of breast take three or four minutes; longer and they go dry and stringy.

Add the oregano, basil, black pepper and salt.

Pour in the cream and simmer gently for 2 to 3 minutes, until slightly reduced.

Bring it together

Take the pan off the heat before adding the Parmesan. Add it in handfuls, stirring until melted.

Cheese added to a boiling sauce splits — the fat separates out and the proteins go stringy, and there is no recovering it.

Add the drained pasta to the sauce, not the sauce to the pasta.

Now use the pasta water. Add a splash at a time, tossing continuously, until the sauce goes glossy and clings to the noodles. The starch in that water is what emulsifies the fat and liquid into a proper sauce — without it you get cream sitting in a puddle at the bottom of the bowl.

Serve immediately, in warm bowls, with parsley and more Parmesan.

Chef’s notes

Grate the Parmesan yourself. Pre-grated cheese is coated with anti-caking agents that stop it melting smoothly, and it is the usual cause of a grainy Alfredo.

The sauce tightens as it cools and does not reheat well. This is a dish to make and eat, not one to hold.

If you want to try the original: cook fettuccine, drain it, and toss it in a warm bowl with a generous amount of soft butter, a great deal of grated Parmesan and enough pasta water to bring it together. It is better than it sounds and it takes five minutes.