hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with creamy ricotta pasta sauce
that's right despite the fact this creamy pasta sauce contains no cream it
is actually creamier than cream sauces that contain cream by the way I sure
hope you're not playing that if he says cream drinking game but anyway if you're
wondering how that's possible it's because we're gonna use some ricotta
plus one secret ingredient I don't want to give away yet but I'll give you a
hint its calorie free so we'll keep you in suspense for a little while while we
go ahead and get started by cooking our pasta and of course for that we're gonna
need some nice cold fresh water that will bring to a boil over high heat and
as always we're gonna generously salt that since you want your pasta not to be
bland and it's not an accident that I'm using a strainer to stir that in since
this is not a recipe we're gonna drain the pasta okay for this we're gonna need
to scoop that pasta out of the water and transfer it into that pan you see next
to it and that's where all the magic is gonna happen and I mean that literally
so we'll go ahead and bring our water to a boil and then transfer our pasta in
and today what I'll be using is 8 ounces of or Ketty pasta which our Italian
friends think look like little ears and this shape is going to work very
well for this recipe because that cup shape is really gonna help hold on to
the sauce but legally I have to tell you that any other pasta shape will work and
what we'll do once our pasta water is boiling is go ahead and transfer that in
and we'll set our timer but we want to cook this about 1 minute less than the
package directions because that pasta will cook a little more when we finish
it in the sauce later so we'll go ahead and set our timer and this is where
things get really exciting and that's because we have to hustle and finish our
sauce ingredients before the timer rings which is fine because it's only gonna
take a couple minutes and our sauce is gonna start with about a half a cup of
beautiful fresh ricotta cheese to which we'll add 1 large egg and by the way I
said fresh ricotta cheese because later you're gonna see some non fresh ricotta
cheese so stay tuned for that but in the meantime let's continue on with some
kosher salt as well as some freshly ground black pepper and then one
optional ingredient that I would consider mandatory and that'll be a
little bit of freshly grated lemon zest which as you know is how we add lemon
flavor to something when we don't want the acidity from the juice so we'll go
ahead and grate in the zest of one lemon and then finish up with a little shake
of cayenne and then we'll take a whisk and give this a mix until it's smooth or
at least until it looks a little something like this
at which point it's time to add our secret ingredients a couple ladles of
our boiling pasta water oh yeah we're gonna go ahead and take a little of that
and quickly whisk it in and don't worry it's not gonna scramble the eggs unless
you're afraid and the mixture can sense fear but don't be scared just go ahead
and whisk that in and then as soon as that's been mixed in we'll go ahead and
whisk in another half ladle or so and basically what we've done here is what
they call in the business tempering the egg since we've not only thin that
mixture out but we've also increased the temperature so that when we stir it into
our hot pasta there's not going to be an equation and basically that's it the
base for our creamy ricotta pasta sauce is done and we will simply set that
aside until our timer rings which mine just did once that happens what we'll do
is use our strainer and go ahead and transfer that pasta into the pan
letting most but not all the water drain off okay we do want a little bit of
pasta water in there and by the way you will want to reserve that water in case
you have to add more later but anyway we'll transfer our pasta into our pan at
which point we can transfer our sauce mixture in while at the same time
turning our heat on medium and then all we're gonna do is stir this together
over medium heat for a minute or two or until our mixture thickens up and
resembles heavy cream and as our pasta keeps absorbing liquid and the heat
tightens up the eggs in our mixture you'll notice this sauce taking on a
beautiful luxurious consistency which should be just thick enough to coat that
pasta and of course if yours gets too thick just add another splash of pasta
water to the pan and technically at this point your creamy ricotta pasta sauce is
done and could certainly be seasoned and served as is but as you probably saw
from the intro picture I'm gonna go ahead and add some pesto to mine and
stir that in and while that is absolutely stellar in this sauce so are
like a hundred other things which I will try to give
a few examples of on the blog but today I was in sort of a pesto mood so that's
what I went with but feel free to flavor yours any way you see fit
I mean you are after all the chef boyardee of whether to copy me and then
once whatever we're adding to this has been stirred in and everything's nicely
heated through we are of course going to taste it for seasoning and it would not
be unusual at all that we have to add another pinch of salt which I did and
that's it once we're happy with how that's seasoned we will go ahead and
transfer that into a warm bowl and if we wanted we could eat it just like this it
is definitely delicious enough and certainly beautiful enough but I'm
recommending we don't and instead top this by grading on a second kind of
ricotta known as ricotta salata which is basically fresh ricotta that they salt
and press in aged for about three months or so which produces this beautiful
snowy white gradable ricotta that has a more intense saltier concentrated
ricotta flavor and for me the absolute perfect garnish for this pasta but of
course having said that any and all of your favorite pasta cheeses will work
here but if you've never tried this check it out speaking of which let me go
ahead and grab a spoon and check this out and that my friends is one amazing
creamy pasta sauce and it's not that I don't like the traditional cream sauce
method but reducing heavy cream for this makes it a lot richer as opposed to this
which has a remarkably similar texture but as lower fat not quite so decadent
and filling not to mention because we use Mirko de the sauce has a little bit
of that cheesy Tanous that we don't get with heavy cream so I really do love
this technique and I know it is a little bit weird we didn't use any
parmigiano-reggiano here but like I said this ricotta salata is magnificent in
this and even if you don't end up trying to make this sauce at the very least I
hope you buy and try some of that cheese but anyway that's it what I'm calling
creamy ricotta pasta sauce not only do I think this looks taste and feels better
than nutritional cream sauce the entire recipe only takes like 10 minutes so for
those reasons and more I really do hope you give this a try soon head over to
food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts
wonderful as usual and as always enjoy
you