Hey guys! Welcome back to my channel The
Curious Palate
This is Vidhya Shivalingam. Today's dish is
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. Aglio means "garlic"
e means "and" olio means "oil".
Spaghetti with garlic and oil. I think
it's one of the simplest dish
ever in terms of ingredients and process
but still
sometimes we fail to nail the taste and
that's because of missing on intricate
details in the process.
Today, we will learn about all those minute details and the traditional method
of making spaghetti aglio e olio.
While the method is traditional Italian
I have added a very interesting twist in
the ingredients.
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Let's start by placing a deep pot of
water for boiling.
Once the water starts boiling, add a good
amount of salt to it.
Twist and add the spaghetti to the well
salted water. Twisting the spaghetti
prevents them from sticking to each
other.
No matter which brand you buy, follow the
instructions on the package for the
cooking time of the pasta.
After a few seconds, push the pasta into
the water so it cooks evenly.
While the pasta is boiling, let's chop up
the garlic, chilli and parsley.
While chopping the garlic, finely slice
them.
If you're thinking this is too much
garlic, let me tell you it's not.
As this is a garlic and oil pasta, a good
amount of garlic is absolutely necessary.
Take a look at how thin I've sliced the
garlic. Similarly, slice the bird's eye chilli as well.
The bird's eye chili has a very unique
fruity and spicy flavor to it.
and it adds a very nice kick to the
spaghetti but feel free to use any kind
of chilli that you have handy.
If you haven't already checked out my
video on spaghetti all' arrabbiata with a
special twist, the link is right up here.
Let's also finely chop some parsley and
this is also an optional
ingredient when compared to the
authentic recipe. You could also replace
this with any herb of your choice,
even cilantro or thyme works perfectly well.
Place a pan on low heat and pour around
5 to 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive
oil
This is an oil pasta and made with very
few ingredients
so make sure to use a very good quality
olive oil
unlike usual we will be adding the
garlic and chilli to the cold oil.
What we're looking for is for the garlic
and chili to impart the flavor to the
oil.
This is not possible if you add garlic
to the hot oil
as it will cook faster and the time given
for the flavor to be transferred will be
very less.
While this is cooking on low heat let's
check on our pasta
it should be done by now, reserve some
pasta water
and drain the pasta. Make sure the pasta
is cooked al dente
before you drain it. Al dente is the
consistency of pasta
when it's cooked firm but not crunchy.
Remember, the pasta is going to cook further in
the pan. As you can see the garlic is
almost done cooking and the sides have
started turning golden.
At this stage let's add in some oregano
and chili flakes just to season this
pasta.
Oregano is not a part of the authentic
recipe. Add half of the chopped parsley
and give it a quick stir once the garlic
turns golden brown in color
we want it to stop cooking. This is the
time to add the pasta water which we had
reserved earlier
The starch in the pasta water helps in
emulsifying this oil
making it creamy. Now, let's add the pasta
and let it cook
until the water reduces. I have added
around half
a cup of the pasta water. With the help
of tongs toss this pasta a couple of
times
until the sauce is well coated. After a
couple of minutes,
the sauce is reduced and the pasta
almost cooked perfectly.
At this stage, add a good amount of the
grated parmesan cheese and mix this well
until the cheese is melted
Look at that gloss, the pasta is coming
together so well
Add the other half of the chopped
parsley and top it with some freshly
ground pepper.
The parsley and pepper add a good amount
of freshness and sharpness to this dish.
Toss them all together for one last time.
And our spaghetti Aglio e olio (garlic and oil
pasta) is finally ready.
Time to serve the pasta. Roll the pasta
around the tongs and place them on the
plate to get a good height.
Garnish it with some more grated
parmesan, ground pepper
, and some freshly chopped parsley. I bet
you'll be pleasantly surprised at how
delicious this dish is in spite of being
so simple to make.
It's the perfect dish for a dinner date
even if you don't have time on you for
cooking
Serve it with some nicely toasted garlic
bread or olive bread.
The bread also helps in collecting all
the sauces that are left behind
after the pasta. In fact the original
dish never calls for all that cheese that
we added.
They would actually add bread crumbs to
the sauce. I hope you would give my
version of the Aglio e olio a try
and give this recipe a huge thumbs up
and if there's a special version of this
recipe that you have tried
I'd love to hear about it. Leave them in
the comment section below,
share this with your family and friends
and subscribe to The Curious Palate for
more such special recipes.
Bye! Bye! Keep experimenting.
