Creamy Baked Asiago-Gouda Fettuccine

Lainey6605's Note:

Let your taste buds experience the very flavorful combination of Asiago and smoked Gouda cheeses, which team up to make this dish extra-special. The pasta sauce is a bit liquidity before baked, but it reduces down to a thicker sauce consistency. This fettuccine is rich, creamy and tastes wonderful. It is filling enough for a meatless dinner. It is quick enough for a weekday meal, but delicious to serve to company. Pair it with steamed veggies or a salad. Update: I have edited this recipe as a result of a couple of the reviewers' suggestions.

• Total Time: 50 mins
• Prep Time: 25 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1 lb fettuccine pasta
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 shallots , finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves , minced
• 6 tablespoons butter , melted
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 tablespoon parsley flakes
• 1⁄8; teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup asiago cheese , grated
• 1 cup smoked gouda cheese , grated
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 1 cup milk

Directions:

1. Cook fettuccine in large pot of salted water until tender but firm to the bite, about 10 minutes; drain well.
2. While pasta is cooking, in small skillet, saute shallots and garlic in 1 T butter over medium heat until tender; set aside.
3. After fettuccine is done cooking, drain well in colander and then pour back into the same pot.
4. Add the 6 T melted butter and coat pasta well.
5. Next add the shallot mixture, parsley flakes, cayenne pepper and ground nutmeg; stir well.
6. Next, add 1 cup grated Asiago cheese and 1 cup grated smoked Gouda cheese and combine well.
7. Next, add the half-and-half and milk and combine well.
8. Let the fettuccine sit for about 15 minutes so that the pasta soaks up the flavors of the sauce mixture.
9. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
10. Enjoy!
11. Let sit for about 5 minutes and serve.

Reviews

[Kelly M.]

3stars. This recipe has great potential. I don't believe it came out for me as it was described..it was not really creamy. The pasta seemed to have soaked up all of the sauce, and my cheese was not uniformly melted, I had lumps of cheese throughout. I would have liked to have seen some garlic sauteed with the shallots instead of the garlic salt. I found it difficult to stir the ingredients into the casserole dish without it going everywhere and ended up putting it all back in the pasta pot before adding the liquids, whick worked out much better. Maybe my dish was too small, but I used a 2 qt. casserole as suggested. For a baked pasta dish, I found using fettuccine an odd choice, and probably would use a pasta such as bowties or penne. It's awkward to serve it after it was baked. I think if this was made not as a baked dish, but an actual sauce made to pour over cooked pasta and serve, it would have worked better for me. I can see it being a wonderful sauce. I'm sorry this didn't work out better for me. Good Luck in the contest!

[evelyn/athens]

3 stars I think the instructions for this recipe could be simplified tremendously. First of all, instead of adding everything separately into the baking pan and mixing each time (made the pan really messy before putting into oven), I think it would be a whole lot easier to put all the ingredients into the pot the pasta has boiled in, mix it there, and then empty into your prepared baking pan. Also, the recipe specifies 2 shallots, finely chopped. How much is that exactly? Shallots don't come in a uniform size. Here in Greece we can get very small ones to really enormous ones that would measure about 1 1/2 cups when chopped. So, which one is it? I went with what I thought my family would like and added a 1/2 cup for a half batch of this recipe, but I wish the chef had been more specific here. Also, the chef suggests allowing the pasta to sit in the sauce for about 1/2 an hour before baking to absorb flavours. The emphasis is on the optional, but you do get the idea that the dish will be better this way, so why not change the instructions to just let the pasta sit in the sauce while you preheat your oven? It won't be 1/2 an hour, but it will be a good 15 minutes, and that is bound to improve the flavour of the pasta as per the instructions. Finally, I found that my pasta had already absorbed nearly all the sauce while it was resting for that 15-20 minute period for the oven to heat. I stuck to the recipe, but turned the oven off after 15 minutes as my pasta was already too dry, so I think the liquid measurement may need some adjusting upwards if you want a creamy pasta. The flavour is fine, certainly cheesy enough, but the recipe stills needs some work.

[bricookie55]

We loved this! I loved the combination of the two cheeses together, and loved that I didn't have to make a stovetop cream sauce for this dish. It made for a wonderful meal with bread and a salad. Thank you!