white wine and lemon sauce [Recipes]

2010 Jun 10
does anyone have an easy white wine and lemon sauce recipe that doesn't involve cream? i've been experimenting and while it is always delicious, i am having a hard time taming the lemon. i've been using white wine, fresh squeezed lemon & zest, garlic, olive oil. basically saute the garlic and oil, then adding the liquids and cooking it down to reduce by 1/2. i toss it with pasta, asparagus and parmessan cheese. it is very quick and tasty. i just wonder if there is another way i should be doing the sauce.

2010 Jun 10
Have you tried adding butter at the end to balance out some of the lemon and for a nicer consistency?

2010 Jun 10
I'm with Yan on that. Butter, or beurre manie should do the trick.

2010 Jun 10
Following on what Yan and LWB have mentioned, have you tried beurre blanc? It's a bit more involved than the recipe you provided, but that's just because you whisk in the butter fairly slowly in order to make an emulsion.

I think the ratio is roughly 1 cup of wine per half pound of butter? You reduce the wine (and lemon juice) down to almost nothingness, take it off the heat, and slowly whisk whisk whisk the butter in.

Don't know if I've ever seen beurre blanc used as a pasta sauce, but it may be kinda neat.

2010 Jun 11
That's a whole lotta butter!

2010 Jun 11
But it tastes SO GOOD.

Also, if you're using it to sauce pasta I think you can use it quite sparingly. At least I'd assume so. Kinda like how you get those huge buckets of salad dressing on the side at restaurants but only need about a tenth of it to adequately dress your salad.

2010 Jun 14
i made it again. i used previous amounts, cooked to half and then just before serving, whisked in some butter. not the amounts momomoto suggested, maybe a 1/4 cup? it went over very well and reheated nicely the next day too.

2010 Jun 14
So did the butter "tame" the lemon, hff? I was going to suggest more olive oil perhaps - butter would also do the job while thickening. I made something like this tonight with olive oil, garlic, shallots, hot ground chilies, lemon juice, asparagus, and white wine, stirring in a Tbs of cold butter at the end to thicken, then adding greens (torn spinach, mustard and Swiss chard as well as sliced fresh oregano), covering and wilting, then the pasta and seasonings. The butter should be cold when stirred (or whisked) in.

2010 Jun 15
it did tame the lemon. i used cold butter at the end and whisked it in. adding greens would have been a good idea. i had asparagus and green peas. my husband and friend loved it.