Yes. It is another lemon-based recipe. I’m still working my way through the bag of lemons and the big bottle of juice I’ve squeezed. My spouse suggested perhaps a creamy lemon pasta dish would be good. I resoundingly agreed and set about cobbling together a workable recipe.
Any cream sauce is really just butter, flour, salt, dairy product (heavy cream or milk pick your fat content). The tricky parts are to get the appropriate flavor and the sauce to be the right consistency. Typically you use a 1/1/1 ratio. 1 tbs of flour + 1 tbs butter + 1 cup of dairy product to get a proper sauce. However, given that I wanted to put lemon juice into this recipe and sauteed vegetables, I needed to account for the additional liquid in order to get the sauce to properly thicken. I ultimately settled on the following ratio
- 3 tbs butter
- 3 – 4 tbs flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup of lemon juice
- diced mushrooms
- diced onion
- 1/2 cup frozen peas
- Gemelli
Cook the gemelli pasta. While the pasta is cooking add butter to a medium sauce pan and melt it. Add mushrooms, onion and salt. Saute mushrooms and onions well. I add the salt at this point because it helps release the liquid in the veggies. Depending on the juiciness I see when the onions and mushrooms cook I can increase the flour amount. Add in flour to make a roux. You want the flour to absorb the liquid and to be slightly golden before you add the milk and cream. Add the lemon juice and stir until flour mostly dissolves.
Next add the milk and allow this to cook so sauce starts to thicken. Add cream and peas. Cook until completely thickened. I HIGHLY recommend all the liquids be room temperature. Adding them directly from the fridge will mess with the pan temperature and how long the sauce takes to get back to the appropriate temperature to thicken.
When the gemelli is done drain thoroughly and mix cream sauce and gemelli in a single pan. Server with a little lemon zest and grated parmesan on top. For folks who don’t want to go meatless, this could easily be topped with grilled chicken, shrimp or salmon. For folks who don’t like the idea of a heavy pasta meal, this sauce can be used to top vegetables like asparagus.