There are hundreds of recipes for Alfredo sauce; you can also buy it already made in jars. Here’s the kicker, though: there is no such thing as Alfredo sauce. Alfredo is actually a style of serving fettuccine that in fact doesn’t use any prepared sauce at all. Fettuccine Alfredo was “invented” in Rome by Alfredo Di…
Pasta Sauce
Carbonara Sauce
Carbonara sauce is a sauce for pasta. The basic ingredients in Carbonara Sauce are eggs, cheese and pork fat. Throughout most of Italy pancetta is used as the pork element, except in Rome, where pork jowl (“Guancial”) is sometimes used. Cooking Tips If you use pancetta, bear in mind that pancetta is much saltier than…
Genovese Sauce
Genovese Sauce is a red sauce based on simmered onions and beef, served with pasta. But, the red in it is not supposed to come from tomato: purists say that absolutely no tomato is allowed, in any form. Instead, the reddish colour comes from the long, slow cooking of the onion with the beef. The…
Passata
Passata is a medium-thick, pourable, uncooked red tomato sauce made from crushed and strained tomatoes. It has almost the same consistency as tomato ketchup. The thickness of the sauce is owing to the high-quality paste-type tomatoes that are used (as opposed to watery, slicing-type tomatoes.) To make passata, tomatoes are passed (thus the name) through…
Pasta Sauce
If a recipe calls for a jar of pasta sauce, and doesn’t qualify “pasta sauce” further, assume the writer means a tomato-based pasta sauce. Pasta sauces can also be creamy, or oil-based, etc. One of the most misunderstood pasta sauces is the white creamy sauce known as “Alfredo Sauce”, which doesn’t actually exist as a…
Pesto
Pesto is an Italian word for a thick, ground, herbal preparation used as a sauce. Most non-Italians think of it as a green sauce made from basil. That is in fact, however, just one type of Pesto. Other Pestos can be red from tomatoes in their recipes, or even white, as they are based on…