Carrabba's Fettuccine Weesie

Home reconstruction

Weesie is shrimp and mushrooms in a cream sauce over fettuccine, and almost every home version treats it as an alfredo with things added. That gets you something heavy that tastes mostly of cream.

The sauce is built on white wine reduced right down, with the cream added afterwards. The reduction is where the flavour is concentrated, and the cream is there to carry it, not to be the point.

Why the reduction matters

Wine straight into cream tastes raw and slightly harsh, and it thins the sauce so you end up boiling it for ages to get it back.

Reduce the wine first — down to about a quarter of what you started with — and three things happen. The alcohol goes, so what is left is grape acidity and concentrated flavour. The volume drops, so the cream is not fighting a watery base. And the acidity that remains cuts the cream, which is what stops the dish being cloying.

Reduce until the pan is almost dry. That looks like too far. It is not.

The mushrooms have to be browned separately

Mushrooms are about 90% water. Add them to a sauce and they release all of it, diluting everything and going grey and rubbery.

Brown them in a hot dry pan first, on their own, until they have given up their water and started to colour. Then they stop taking on liquid and start giving flavour instead.

The shrimp go in last, for two minutes

Shrimp cook in about two minutes and stay tender for about one after that. Every Weesie that comes out with tough shrimp had them in the sauce for the whole simmer.

Cook them separately, take them out, and return them at the very end to warm through.

What you need

• 450 g fettuccine
• 450 g raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 250 g mushrooms, sliced
• 4 spring onions, sliced, white and green kept apart
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 180 ml dry white wine
• 300 ml double cream
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 60 g parmesan, grated
• 1/4 tsp red chilli flakes
• salt and black pepper
• a handful of parsley, chopped

Method

1. 1. Get the pasta water on and salted.
2. 2. Dry pan, high heat, mushrooms in with no fat. Leave them alone until they release their water and it evaporates, then add 1 tbsp butter and brown them. Set aside.
3. 3. Same pan, 1 tbsp butter, shrimp for 90 seconds a side. Set aside.
4. 4. 2 tbsp butter, the white parts of the spring onion and the garlic, one minute.
5. 5. Wine in. Reduce until the pan is nearly dry — 4–5 minutes on a strong simmer.
6. 6. Cream in, plus the chilli flakes. Simmer gently 3–4 minutes until it coats a spoon.
7. 7. Parmesan off the heat, whisked in.
8. 8. Return the mushrooms and shrimp. Toss with the drained pasta and a splash of the pasta water.
9. 9. Spring onion greens and parsley over the top.

The pasta water

Keep a mugful before draining. The starch in it helps the sauce cling to the fettuccine instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl, and it lets you loosen a sauce that has gone too thick without watering down the flavour.

Storing

It does not keep well. Cream sauces split on reheating and the shrimp toughen the second time. Two days in the fridge at most, reheated gently with a splash of milk, and accept that it is a lesser dish.

Do not freeze it.