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Sauce · Spring & summer

Al limone

A bright, butter-and-lemon dressing built around a single principle: the zest carries the fragrance, the juice carries the acidity, and the two are added at different moments to keep the bitterness in check. Sorrento or Amalfi PGI lemons are the canonical fruit; any unwaxed organic lemon will work.

The lemon

The Italian fruit of choice is one of the two PGI (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) lemons of the south:

• Limone di Sorrento IGP — from the Sorrento peninsula and Capri. Thick fragrant rind, low acidity, slightly oval shape. The variety, often called femminello sorrentino, is the basis of the local limoncello industry.
• Limone Costa d'Amalfi IGP — from the Amalfi coast, just to the east. The local variety, sfusato amalfitano, is paler, more elongated, with a less pungent but more floral aroma. Cultivation on terraced cliff gardens is a UNESCO-recognised cultural landscape.

Both lemons share two crucial features for cooking: a thick, oil-rich rind that releases generous quantities of aromatic oil when zested, and a juice that is less aggressively acidic than the Spanish or Argentine supermarket lemon. The result is a sauce that smells intensely of lemon without tasting sharp. Outside Italy, the closest substitutes are Meyer lemons (American) and unwaxed organic Italian or Sicilian imports; ordinary supermarket lemons work but produce a slightly sharper sauce that benefits from extra butter.

Whatever the lemon, it should be unwaxed if you intend to zest it. Conventional supermarket lemons are coated with a thin food-grade wax that the zester picks up along with the rind oil. Organic lemons are unwaxed by certification; non-organic unwaxed lemons can be sought from greengrocers.

The principle: zest separate from juice

The sauce's flavour comes from two distinct lemon components. The zest — the outer yellow layer of the rind, excluding the bitter white pith beneath — carries the volatile aromatic oils. The juice carries the acidity and the watery sourness. They should be added at different moments and in different proportions.

The zest is added off the heat or at gentle heat: high temperatures evaporate the volatile oils and dull the fragrance. The juice is added at the very end, after the heat is off; lemon juice cooked in hot butter for more than a few seconds turns slightly bitter, and prolonged contact with cheese can curdle the cheese as well.

The method

For two servings (200 g fresh tagliatelle):

1. Prepare the zest. Wash and dry one large unwaxed lemon. Using a fine grater or microplane, take the zest from the entire fruit — rotating so you take only the yellow layer, never the white pith. The yield should be roughly 1 tablespoon of finely grated zest.
2. Boil the pasta. Water, salt, fresh tagliatelle, 2 to 3 minutes. Reserve a ladle of pasta water before draining.
3. Melt the butter. In a wide pan over moderate heat, melt 60 to 80 g of cold cubed butter with a splash of pasta water (about 4 tablespoons). The water emulsifies with the butter and produces a glossy fluid base.
4. Add the zest off the heat. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the lemon zest. Allow the warmth of the pan to release the aromatic oils without driving them off.
5. Add the pasta. Toss the drained tagliatelle into the pan. Toss vigorously for 30 seconds.
6. Add the cheese. Stir in 30 g of finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano in two additions, tossing between, to build the emulsion. Add a splash more pasta water if needed.
7. Finish with juice. Squeeze the juice of half the lemon (about 1 tablespoon) directly over the pasta. Toss once. Taste; add more juice if needed.
8. Plate immediately. Freshly cracked black pepper at the table.

Variants

• With cream. Substitute 80 ml of double cream for the pasta water in the butter base. Common in restaurants; richer, slightly heavier, slightly less bright. The lemon flavour is somewhat dampened.
• With prawns. Sautéed peeled prawns added with the pasta turn this into tagliatelle al limone con gamberi, a summer first course. The cheese is sometimes omitted in this version — the Italian convention against cheese with seafood applies.
• With basil. A few torn leaves of fresh basil added at the very end. Particularly good with Amalfi-coast lemons, which have a faint floral note that basil complements.
• With ricotta. A spoonful of fresh sheep's-milk ricotta stirred in at the end. Found in Campania.

The season

Sorrento and Amalfi PGI lemons peak in the spring, from February through May, though both are harvested in two further smaller cycles through the year. The dish is therefore most naturally a spring or early-summer one, when the lemons are at their fragrant best and the year is moving towards lighter, simpler first courses. It works year-round with shop-bought lemons but is unmistakably at its peak with Italian fruit in season.

Where it sits

Tagliatelle al limone is not a long-established traditional dish in the way that ragù bolognese is. It is a relatively modern composition — well within living memory — that became popular in Italian restaurants in the 1980s and 1990s and is now standard on menus across the country. It is more strongly associated with the Sorrento and Amalfi coasts than with Emilia-Romagna, but tagliatelle is the most common pasta for it, particularly outside the south. Fettuccine al limone is the equivalent dish in Roman restaurants. The fresh egg ribbon's slight porosity holds the butter-and-lemon emulsion well; a dried strand pasta would shed it.