Friday, July 3, 2009

Food Tastes Better With Friends: Homemade Fettucine with Prosciutto and Asparagus and Short Ribs

We love homemade pasta! There's nothing like it! This fettucine with asparagus and prosciutto is divine. With a very light cream sauce, fresh parmesan cheese, and just the right amount of fresh lemon--it is incredible! The recipe for this pasta dish was inspired by this Everyday Food recipe which was a fettucine with prosciutto and peas. We decided to make the pasta from scratch and swap out the peas for asparagus instead. We followed the recipe otherwise.

Our food vacation was greatly augmented by a special guest appearance from V and K! V and K are good friends and have been known to make memorable meals. We were so glad they came up to stay for a few days and so we got started with the meal of homemade fettucine with prosciutto and asparagus and added a green salad and short ribs.

Justin braised the short ribs and had them cooking away for a few hours. Near the end of the cooking time, we started making the fresh pasta--beginning with a volcano of flour and fresh eggs.

We worked that together in a lovely dough and used an Italian pasta machine to sheet the pasta and cut the fettucine. The pasta machine belonged to my Nonnie but she always hand rolled her pasta so it was like new when I inherited it.

The fresh noodles had a beautiful bright yellow color. We tossed them in a bit of flour to keep them from sticking until we boiled them.

The sauce preparation was so easy! It began with sauteeing a minced shallot in butter and adding in heavy cream and prosciuttuo and asparagus. Once the asparagus was cooked enough, we stirred in a bit of lemon juice and lemon zest and salt and pepper.

We poured the sauce on the freshly cooked pasta and added plenty of freshly grated parmesan along with a bit of salt and pepper. And the result was magnificent! It was probably one of the lightest, most flavorful pasta dishes we have had. You can see the cream sauce is very light and just enough to flavor the pasta without making it heavy. We highly recommend you try this recipe--even if you don't make the pasta from scratch!

Oh yes, and we can't forget about the short ribs. They turned out wonderfully as well! What a wonderful meal to share with friends!