Molly Makes Pasta al Limone

When I was little, me and my cousin

on Thanksgiving, like after we'd eat,

we would

go into the living room and put on QVC,

and then we'd go into our house and like,

find items and then one of us would

like, the QVC rep

and would like, sell the item to the other person.

It was pretty awesome.

(mellow funky music)

Here's what's exciting about this one.

Tell me what's exciting.

You got five ingredients or less.

You got 15 minutes or less.

Three installments of parmesan cheese

and it's only available here and now.

One whole lemon,

we're gonna use every part of this lemon that we can.

So I have two long strips of the zest here

and I'm just gonna really finely julienne these

with a sharp knife.

Julienne means

super, super, super thinly sliced,

long, thin strands.

So these guys will be garnishes later on.

And then I'm gonna zest all of the rest of this lemon

straight into the pot where we'll be building our sauce.

Okay, so all of the zest

of this entire lemon

is going straight into this pot.

And then I'm gonna juice the rest of it.

This is one of my favorite tools in the kitchen,

the reamer, juice collector that also measures.

So,

it catches the seeds, collects the juice,

and then measures it for you.

I'm just gonna take two tablespoons,

'cause unfortunately, it doesn't measure in tablespoons,

it measures in ounces.

And set it aside.

This is done, we've done everything we can with it.

There's no more left to give.

And we'll add three quarters a cup of heavy cream

into this dutch oven with the lemon zest

and head over to the stove.

Look at that, my pasta water's boiling.

Before I forget, I'm gonna season my pasta water

'cause that'd be a real

tragedy if I forgot that.

Yeah, that's a lotta salt, I know.

Okay.

So,

our cream is

coming to a simmer over medium heat.

Sorry, guys.

You know?

A watched pot never boils.

So don't watch it.

Oh!

We have action

'cause we weren't watching.

It is now beginning to simmer around the edges.

So I have six tablespoons of cold butter.

It's important for it to be cold

so that it emulsifies well.

If it's melted, the sauce may break

and not emulsify.

So cold butter.

It's cut into tablespoons and I'm gonna whisk in

one at a time.

So as it's simmering, just whisking constantly.

And making sure

it's fully melted and incorporated before I add

another tablespoon.

Two.

Three.

It's getting a little bit thicker now.

This is essentially a Beurre Monte,

it's a fancy French term for

an emulsified butter sauce.

Four.

The reason that you want it simmering as you're adding

the butter is that

the agitation from the bubbles is gonna help

create this emulsion.

And here we go with the last one.

That's basically the sauce,

we're basically done.

That was like, three minutes.

Alright.

So I'm gonna just keep this on very low

just to keep it warm

and I'm gonna drop my pasta.

So 12 ounces of spaghetti

going into heavily salted water.

And we're just gonna let that cook away

until it's al dente.

That's all I got for you right now.

Hurry over, hurry over because the pasta

is cooked.

We're gonna test one.

Again,

I've said this before,

there's a teeny, tiny little bit

of white

in the middle of the strand

and that is your al dente.

You don't want that to be too large,

but you want it to be there otherwise

it's over cooked.

Also, I heard you can throw a nood

up to the ceiling.

Should we try it?

Perfection.

Okay.

I'm gonna bring this

sauce right back up to where it was

over medium heat.

So the pasta's just gonna go straight into the pot.

No need to

drain it in a colander,

this is easier.

Just throw it on in and if some of the water

piggy backs onto the spaghetti and comes in,

that's actually a good thing

because we're gonna reserve some of that water.

About three quarters of a cup

and add it on into here as well.

You can see this is pretty thin

and loose and almost watery.

That's okay because we're gonna add

a good amount of parmesan cheese in here

and that's gonna thicken the sauce.

So you wanna allow that space

so that once the cheese is added,

it can

thicken up and become creamy.

So we're starting to see some bubbles and some movement

in the sauce.

So,

little by little, I'm gonna start adding

parmesan cheese.

And tossing constantly.

You add the parm little by little so that it

fully melts in and incorporates.

If you dump it all at once,

you would get a big clump of parm

that won't actually disperse into the sauce.

Okay, so we're nice and creamy and cheesy.

I'm adding the reserved lemon juice,

tossing it, and then we're gonna taste

for seasoning.

For maybe the first time ever,

I'm not gonna add more salt.

[Tommy] Chris perks up in the background.

Molly, the smell.

Oh, Chris loves this dish.

Loves.

Okay, you're gonna have a taste of it very shortly.

Okay.

And that's literally it.

And then we do

the old nest trick.

Let the stragglers straggle off

and then into the bowl,

turning the bowl and not the tongs.

Okay, I'm gonna spoon over a little bit of extra cream.

(laughter in background)

[Tommy] That's the whole thing about the nest?

It's in a pile?

Yeah, it's just you make it look like a nest.

I don't know, there's not,

don't overthink it, it's just a pasta nest.

And then the reserved lemon strips, the julienne,

for garnish.

And of course, some black pepp.

And I'd like to call Chris Morocco to the table.

[Tommy] Come on down!

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[Tommy] Have we got a deal for you.

And this does have cream in it?

LMK.

Yeah.

It has three quarters of a cup of cream.

Oh my God.

I need this so badly.

Mmm!

Alright, I'm definitely gonna eat this.

Is it cool if I just roll back to my...

Please do, roll on out.

Alright, thanks.

Just go for one more.

Delish.

This pasta is super unique because

instead of just being heavy and laden with cheese

and fat,

there is the additional element of lemon juice

and lemon zest, which brightens the entire thing up.

And so I

would argue that it's more delicious Cacio e Pepe.

Have to try it before you knock it.

So don't comment until you try it.

Please.

Thank you.

Anything else?

A little extra cheese isn't gonna do any parm.

(laughter)

That was not my joke.

Okay, fine.

Yeah, it didn't really come out,

it didn't feel natural, did it?