We’ve been having a heatwave here in the UK on and off,  and it’s been too hot to cook some nights.  All I want to do when I get home from work is switch the fan on, and eat a bit of watermelon.  

It’s most irregular!  It’s a British tradition to moan about the weather, it’s in our bones.  But rather than moan about it, the other night I decided to cook something quick and delicious to have with the new regular default helping of SALAD.

As an aside, if you haven’t heard about the “women laughing alone with salad” internet craze, google it.  I believe that it started here – with this brilliant, wordless blog post  Stock footage images do make me laugh sometimes, and it all says something about the ridiculous emphasis put on clean eating these days, although I’m not entirely sure what.   Fettuccine Buttons would NOT fall into the category of clean eating, but if you have a nice big salad on the side, you can feel have a little chuckle with yourself and feel a little bit virtuous…

Red’s Fettuccine was on the list for testing as he’s in a movie with Vincent Price, so this one will probably go in the Vincent Co-Star cookbook.    Also I’m determined to learn once and for all how to spell Fettuccine…  So writing a blog post about it should help.

I ate a LOT of pasta when I was a vegetarian in the 1980s.  It was what we did here in the UK.  There was no Ottolenghi or Anna Jones then.  I’d never heard of quinoa and probably would have been very suspicious of it it turned up on a menu.

 In the 80s if you went out to eat, it would be pasta on offer on a weeknight for the veggies, and maybe a nut roast for Sunday lunch if you were lucky.  At home I seem to remember quite a lot of this going on…

but mostly, PASTA.  I ate so much of it that I’ve barely touched it since becoming a carnivore.

I have made a discovery though.  My new obsession with reading reviews on the Ocado app when doing my grocery order has led me to this:

It has been getting rave reviews and I decided to pop it in the order for the time I got around to Red’s Fettuccine recipe (bingo – got the spelling right first time that time).  It’s delicious!  I have thrown away the ancient packet of  green and yellow brittle – and ultimately pretty tasteless – nests of dried fettuccine that are well past their sell by date.  The De Cecco pasta is dried, but somehow seems fresher.  I am a convert and I can see some Audrey Hepburn pasta recipes from Audrey at Home happening this summer…

Anyhow, back to Red.  I love Red.  He’s been great in everything I can remember seeing him in.  Notably The Poseidon Adventure, which is a once a year guilty pleasure for me…

and They Shoot Horses Don’t They?

What a bleak movie…

Anyhow, Fettuccine Buttons is a great little dish to rustle up on a weeknight when you don’t want too much faff.  Red specifies margarine, but of course, if you are that way inclined, feel free to use butter.  As I mentioned, clean eating this ain’t!

I would like to point out that it is obviously not just me that finds Fettuccine difficult to spell.  One too many Ns in this recipe title!

From a journey around the interwebs, I reckon this recipe serves four.  Easy to divide it down for a solo supper which I did. Although a 1/4 of a dash of vermouth isn’t much – more like a dash or two for me!  For UK cooks, a stick of margarine is 113 grams, a cup of Parmesan cheese is about 100g, an American pint is equivalent to 473 ml – less than a UK pint which comes out as 568 ml.  But you know what, Fettuccine Buttons is not one of those recipes you need to follow to the letter, just bung in whatever you reckon is about right of each thing.  But don’t skimp on the vermouth!

Monthly movie star menus direct to your inbox

You have Successfully Subscribed!