Thursday, March 17th, 2011 - Spaghetti with Lemon

Recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/02/spaghetti-with-lemon-and-olive-oil-al-limone/


1 pound spaghetti or linguine
Salt
3 lemons
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil , plus additional for serving
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 ounce finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup), plus additional for serving
Ground black pepper
Small handful fresh basil or arugula (what I used, deliciously, in a pinch) leaves, shredded

Cook linguine or spaghetti in well-salted water to your al dente tastes in a large, wide-bottomed pot. (You’ll have fewer dishes to wash if you use this pot to assemble the dish as well.)

While pasta is cooking, zest lemons until you have a little shy of a tablespoon of zest. Juice lemons — you’ll have anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 cup lemon juice.

Drain pasta, reserving 1 1/2 cups of pasta cooking water. Dry out your pot, then boil the olive oil, cream, zest and 1 cup of the reserved pasta water together for two minutes over high heat. Return pasta to pot and stir until coated. Add the cheese and 1/4 cup lemon juice and toss, toss, toss everything together. Add more pasta water, 1/4 cup at a time, if you’d like your dish a little looser. Quickly taste a strand of pasta and see if you want to add the remaining lemon juice (we did). Stir in basil or arugula and season generously with salt and pepper.
Serve immediately, drizzling individual portions with a bit of extra olive oil and sprinkling with extra Parmesan. cheese.


Changes: I thought we had good cream, but apparently it spoiled so I used whole milk and butter instead.  I also added grated mozzarella at the end of cooking along with Parmesan.

This was just okay, though I suspect with no heavy cream and the poorly distributed mozzarella, it didn't have a chance to be good.  I would consider trying this again with the right ingredients and not added mozzarella.