Spaghetti alla carrettiera

Nothing is cooked but the pasta: garlic warmed in oil, pecorino emulsified off the heat.

Not vegetarian — contains Pecorino Romano made with lamb rennet.

Ingredients

• 400 g spaghetti
• 100 ml olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves, finely sliced
• 2 dried red chillies, crumbled
• 80 g pecorino romano, finely grated
• 1 large bunch parsley, chopped
• 2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt, for the water

Method

1. NOTHING HERE IS COOKED EXCEPT THE PASTA. There is no sauce to simmer and no tomato: the oil, the garlic and the cheese are the sauce, brought together with pasta water.
2. Put the spaghetti on in well-salted water.
3. While it cooks, warm the oil with the garlic and chilli in a wide pan over the LOWEST heat for 4 to 5 minutes. The garlic should turn barely blond and go sweet. Browned garlic turns the whole dish bitter and cannot be rescued.
4. Lift out 300 ml of the pasta water before draining.
5. Drain the spaghetti 1 minute short and tip it into the pan with a third of the water. Toss hard over a medium heat for 1 minute.
6. TAKE IT OFF THE HEAT, THEN ADD THE PECORINO, in three lots, tossing and adding water between each. Cheese thrown into a hot pan seizes into strings; off the heat it emulsifies into something glossy.
7. Parsley and the black pepper last, and serve it immediately -- it stiffens as it cools.

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