This week has been a bit of a challenge. Most of my recipe attempts have not gone to plan. Too-loose pastry creams, dense cakes, and forgotten whipped egg whites. So, I went back to the drawing board and asked myself the age old question. What do I want to eat? It was easy. My family’s favorite restaurant serves a dish that’s off the menu now. It’s a sour cream pasta with chicken and shrimp. The best part is the toasted walnuts on top.

Our Favorite Sour Cream Pasta Recipe

So, I decided to make it and share the recipe. Which I’ve developed over the last 10 years. I’ve made it many, many times at home. During the pandemic when our favorite restaurant was closed. Then, recently when the restaurant shuttered and moved locations (which is a little heartbreaking). Let’s go back to the start. Our favorite restaurant, The Great Impasta, was a humble little building on the edge of Maine street in Brunswick, Maine. My dad and grandmother first went on a whim on the day I was born. My mom and I snuggled up in a hospital bed while she recovered.

They loved the rustic Italian food. Free garlic knots, doused in oil and garlic and heaps of parmesan cheese. They had my dad’s favorite beer and lots of options for his simple palate. The perfect recipe was the sour cream pasta, which was not labeled as having a sour cream sauce. My dad would definitely refuse to eat it if so. It was called Gamberi E Pollo, Chicken and Shrimp. This sour cream pasta dish became his favorite thing in the world. It has penne, or linguine, topped with a blanket of thick white sauce. Lightly grilled chicken and Maine shrimp. Topped with toasted walnuts and Italian seasoning.

Our Favorite Restaurant

Since that day back in 1995, my family has visited The Great Impasta countless times. Hundreds of times in my childhood. Then, I went to college down the street and we ate there nearly every Saturday to catch up. After college we ate outside at makeshift tables in the parking lot with covid masks during the pandemic, and I even worked there for a short while after leaving my stressful desk job. I dropped a whole lasagna on the floor. And I made a tiramisu upside down. Long story short, this restaurant has become like a second home for us over the years. Recently that prodigal building from nearly 30 years ago was sold and they moved locations. We haven’t been yet.

But this week after a few culinary struggles and stressful bouts with my fluctuating mental health, I was thinking about that sour cream pasta. A fresh box of penne in our pantry. Sour cream in the fridge. The “Impasta” as we lovingly call it always kept a container of sour cream in the fridge, just for our family. The weather has been sour and I’ve been feeling depressed about the state of the world, wanting to stay home more. So, I decided to cook our favorite sour cream pasta once more at home as a comforting pick-me-up.

Fighting Perfectionism

Honestly, I’m really hard on myself. Which you’ll know if you’ve read all these blog posts. I call myself a recovering perfectionist because it’s deeply hurt me throughout my life. Nothing I ever did growing up was good enough. So, I found it hard to not dive back into that negative mindset this week when my recipes didn’t go as planned. I spent most of the beginning of the week staying up late and editing my website. Lots of boring computer tasks causing eye-strain and exhaustion. So I was excited to cook. Get back to what I loved doing. But I overthought everything. I decided to make a coconut cake for Easter that would maybe get me some new views.

I woke up early on Wednesday and drove to the grocery store. After browsing a little I picked up two big bags of shredded coconut and a box of baking soda. Which I needed after a recent anxiety-induced deep cleaning session. I came home and got to work, first trying an impromptu coconut loaf cake. I wanted to make lamingtons or a coconut cake with a layer of jam in the middle. And I wanted to pipe pastry cream on top. After a while of measuring and mixing I had a thick, delicious cake batter which only filled the pan halfway. I baked it anyway, hoping it would rise.

Coconut Cake Experiments

I realized halfway through squatting in front of the oven that I forgot to add egg whites. So, I came up with a delicious, yet flat and ugly-looking coconut cake. My lamingtons would look like Jenga blocks. So, I decided to give it another go. I got out a notepad and sketched an extravagant layer cake, like my dark chocolate cake. Which I made to celebrate the premiere of my favorite show, Yellowjackets. This week was the finale, so it was perfect. Yin and yang cakes, one dark and one light. I spent an hour prepping and baking and making pastry cream, infused with toasted coconut. It was delicious, but too thin. I made a beautiful cake batter and forgot to add vanilla, so it was a great texture with no flavor.

Then I stubbornly tried to assemble it all, hoping the pastry cream would flavor the cake. I could just photograph it anyway and no one would know. But as it sat in the fridge it became stodgy and the pastry cream squished out and never thickened. I felt really dejected. With a ton of coconut that I didn’t get to use. Honestly I felt really defeated. Like my mind convinces me in these moments that I’m a hack, or that I can’t actually bake. Who can’t make a simple cake, right? But I’m trying to decompress now and give myself a break. I slept until noon today, which was unexpected. I’ve been super tired, so I needed it.

Simplicity + Pasta

So, I just went back to what I love. Simple recipes that I want to eat. The sour cream pasta from our favorite restaurant flashed in my mind over and over and I began to crave it. So yesterday I finally decided to just make it and photograph it. It’s a pretty simple recipe, but small tweaks have taken it from a haphazard imitation over the years to a pretty accurate and delicious recreation. It starts with a little oil. Keep the heat low and slow. You dry off chicken breasts and shrimp and sear them for a few minutes on a side. This version is vegetarian. Then, you lightly cook garlic in the simmering oil.

Next, deglaze the pan with a sharp, bright white wine. I still don’t know the exact kind our restaurant uses, but it mostly cooks out anyway. Don’t use anything sweet. After it bubbles away a little and the alcohol taste cooks out, you add sour cream and salt. A little parmesan and pasta water. That’s it. Then, you can add your chicken and shrimp back into the pan or serve it directly on top of the pasta. Cook perfectly al-dente pasta, and make sure to save a little pasta water if you need it. But, to be true to the restaurant (and to piss off a lot of Italians) you can put the pasta directly on your serving plate and then pour the sauce on top.

Restaurant Memories

Lastly, ladle a few generous spoonfuls of sauce on top. It always comes to the table like it’s drenched in a warm blanket of off-white sauce. They also add chopped toasted walnuts on top. And a sprinkle of Italian seasoning and fresh cracked black pepper. That’s it. But sometimes the most simple things are the most delicious. And this sour cream pasta is the most nostalgic recipe I have. It reminds me of precious decades of gathering with my family. My dad parking the car. My grandmother ordering scotch. Veal with artichokes. Garlic knots. White wine. Many of my happiest memories, all from different parts of my life.

So, this recipe is very special to me. It lives on in the new building where our favorite restaurant inhabits and in our small home kitchen in the woods in Maine. The taste is comforting and creamy. The pasta should have a good bite to it. Use a wheat/white pasta mix if you can. The sauce is velvety and rich and a tiny bit sharp from the wine and sour cream. But it melds so beautifully with the butter and garlic and chicken and shrimp. The chicken is a very specific toothsome texture that in any other case would not be ideal for me. But somehow this gently cooked, very lightly browned recipe is so tender and delicate. The combination of shrimp and chicken may sound excessive, but it provides a new flavor and texture in each bite.

A New Chapter


The walnuts on top are warm, earthy, and crunchy. They are the most important part in nailing the flavor. They freckle the top of the warm, white blanket of cream with so much crunch and butteriness. And the pop of salt and pepper and Italian seasoning accentuates the taste of each bite. After a hard week, this was so comforting and nostalgic. Sour cream pasta will always be very special to me. And I suppose someday soon we’ll head to our favorite restaurant, in a new building, and start a new chapter of life. All good things must come to an end, but thankfully just the facade has changed. Not the flavor. Or the menu. Or the beautiful people who know our orders by heart.

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you try this sour cream pasta. It’s one of my favorite things. And make sure to check out my Etsy for 100’s or art prints and recipe cards. Use code THEFORKEDRING for 25% off.

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Sour Cream Pasta with Walnuts

My family favorite restaurant-style pasta recipe with sour cream white sauce and toasted walnuts

Course Main Course

Cuisine American, Italian

Keyword lemon pasta, sour cream pasta, walnuts

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 3

Author theforkedring

Ingredients

• 4 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 cups sour cream
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan
• 1/2 cup light cream
• 4 cups dried penne
• 2 cups shelled walnuts
• 3 tsp Italian seasoning
• Salt + pepper to taste

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat 6 quarts of water in a large stock pot over high heat.
• Once the water comes to a boil, add a few large pinches of salt.
• Cook pasta according to package directions, until al dente (usually around 10 minutes)
• Strain and reserve 1 cup pasta water in a heat-proof cup.
• Heat a large saucepan over medium heat and drizzle in a couple tablespoons of neutral oil.
• Add your chopped garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes, until soft.
• Deglaze pan with white wine and cook for 3-4 minutes until slightly reduced.
• In the meantime, thickly chop walnuts and toast in oven for 4-5 minutes until lightly toasted and aromatic.
• Add your sour cream, parmesan, and light cream and stir into a cohesive sauce.
• Cook sauce for 3-4 minutes until slightly thickened, or thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add pasta water as needed if you need to thin it a little.
• Season your sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Divide your pasta amongst 3 plates and spoon a generous portion of white sauce on top of each.
• Season with more fresh cracked black pepper, salt, and Italian seasoning. Then, top with your toasted chopped walnuts.

Notes

• This recipe is usually served with chicken and shrimp, which you are encouraged to add! Just cook them gently on a low simmer with a touch of oil before starting your sauce. Don’t brown too much or it’ll change the flavor of the sauce. 
• Make sure to taste your pasta as you go. The perfect texture for this recipe is al dente.