Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

Garlic brought slowly to blond in cold oil, emulsified with pasta water.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g spaghetti
• 6 garlic cloves, sliced paper-thin
• 2 dried chillies, crumbled
• 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
• a large bunch of parsley
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Slice the garlic as thinly as you can. Chopped or crushed it burns in seconds; sliced it browns evenly and can be watched.
2. PUT THE GARLIC IN THE OIL COLD and bring them up together over a low heat. Garlic dropped into hot oil is bitter before you can lift it out, and bitter garlic is the only way to ruin a dish with four ingredients.
3. Take it off the moment the slices are pale gold. They carry on cooking in the oil.
4. Add the chilli off the heat.
5. Cook the spaghetti in well-salted water and pull it two minutes early.
6. FINISH IT IN THE PAN WITH A LADLE OF ITS WATER, tossing hard. The starch and the oil emulsify into a sauce that coats — without that the oil simply runs to the bottom of the bowl, which is what people mean when they say this dish is dry.
7. NO CHEESE. Cacio e pepe makes its sauce out of cheese and starch water; this one makes it out of oil and starch water, and the two do not combine.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes