Penne Pasta with Lemon Sauce
I had a similar dish recently at a German restaurant in Dresden. This is my version of that dish. It's creamy with a great light lemon flavor and is excellent topped with grilled salmon.
I had a similar dish recently at a German restaurant in Dresden. This is my version of that dish. It's creamy with a great light lemon flavor and is excellent topped with grilled salmon.
- Carbohydrate 28.2397466666667 g
- Cholesterol 108.763333333333 mg
- Fat 24.1344133333333 g
- Fiber 0.133333336810271 g
- Protein 9.88916666666667 g
- Saturated Fat 14.5041906666667 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (432g)
- Sodium 1125.13133333333 mg
- Sugar 28.1064133298564 g
- Trans Fat 1.68163066666666 g
- Calories 366 calories
Step-by-step
- In an extra large skillet, combine the butter, cream and broth. Simmer over medium heat until reduced by about half. Add the lemon juice, lemon and lime zest and set aside.
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente; drain.
- Toss pasta with sauce and serve. Top with large chunks of grilled salmon or chicken.
Reducing heavy cream and beef broth together over medium heat requires constant visual monitoring to prevent scorching, stopping precisely when the liquid volume drops by fifty percent and coats the back of a spoon. Using an extra-large skillet provides the necessary surface area for this evaporation to occur efficiently within ten to fifteen minutes, whereas a smaller pan would trap steam and prolong the process. Butter added at the start melts into the dairy fats, creating an emulsion that holds the watery broth suspension stable without breaking.
Scaling this sauce up or down demands proportional adjustments to the skillet size rather than just the ingredient amounts because a too-crowded pan stalls reduction. Doubling the recipe requires a wide brazier or splitting the liquids across two pans to maintain the rapid evaporation rate essential for proper thickening. Conversely, halving the batch means reducing the simmering time by roughly a third to avoid over-concentrating the sodium from the broth.
Citrus juice introduces citric acid, which chemically interacts with the dairy proteins by lowering the pH and slightly tightening the emulsion, so adding the fresh juice and zests off the heat preserves the volatile aromatic oils. Lacking fresh limes, cooks can substitute additional lemon juice at a one-to-one ratio without altering the structural integrity of the sauce. Zesting only the bright yellow or green outer flavedo avoids the bitter white pith underneath, keeping the flavor profile sharp and clean.
Boiling the penne in a large pot with at least four quarts of rapidly bubbling water ensures the pasta starch disperses rather than gluing the tubes together. Tossing the drained pasta directly into the warm skillet allows the porous wheat surfaces to absorb the dairy emulsion within two minutes before the sauce cools and thickens further.
