Death By Roma – Penne Romanoff

Here is a Penne Romanoff recipe that is totally going to blow you away. It is a family favourite and an instant classic every time I make this for guests. Everyone always asks me for the recipe. The best thing about this classic recipe is that it is soooo easy to make and you probably already have all the ingredients in your kitchen. So without further ado, here is my version of Penne Romanoff – Death by Roma.

Let’s Start The Penne Romanoff

First off, though the traditional recipe calls for Penne, I like to use Farfalle pasta, or as most of you might know it as Bowtie pasta. Reason being is that the Farfalle’s surface area is greater than the Penne so there is more pasta for the Romanoff sauce to cling too, which makes every bite hmm so good.

Prepping the green onions for chopping

First thing we need to do is wash our green onions and chop them as you like them, some people like it extra fine some no so fine, as you can see from the picture bellow I chop ’em somewhere in the middle of hair-thin and medium chop.

Chop onion as thin as you like

Once your onion is chopped, melt about 1/2 cup salted butter in a medium heated pan and wait till it melts all the way through. As the melted butter starts to bubble add the chopped green onions and saute them for a few minutes until they start getting soft and the white parts of the green onion start getting translucent. At this point add about 1/2 tablespoon ground black pepper and stir the green onion and butter mixture. Add about 1/4 cup vodka to the mix and flambé it by tilting the pan and setting a match to the mixture AWAY from the stove top and oven exhaust fan. Wait till the alcohol burns off and return the pan to the stove top.

Next add your 35% cooking cream, the pan will look like what you see in the picture below.  Reduce the heat to just below medium and constantly stir the contents in the pan. What we are doing now is fusing the butter and the cream so it becomes homogeneous.

Cream, butter and green onion mixture for Penne Romanoff sauce.

While constantly stirring the pan, the mixture will slowly reduce and thicken and start to look like the picture below. Continue until the mixture is thick enough that when you run your finger across the back of the mixing spoon the line your finger creates keeps its shape.

Cream and Butter married to a delicious homogeneous Penne Romanoff sauce.

Once you get the sauce consistency just right, it is almost done. Add about 1/2 cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano to the pan and stir until it has all melted. This will further thicken the Penne Romanoff sauce a little more. At this point taste the sauce for seasoning. We had added salted butter and the Parmigiano-Reggiano is also slightly salty so depending on your taste buds you will not have to add any extra seasoning.

Cook and drain the pasta according to the package instructions. Pour the cooked pasta directly into the Romanoff sauce and stir until all the pasta is evenly coated.

Death by Roma! Penne Romanoff

Enjoy the dish on it’s own or enjoy with some cheesy garlic bread.

Enjoy with cheesy garlic bread.