This was my best go-to cop-out meal for decades. It's easier than all of the videos make it look. I searched for a straightforward video but one does not exist.
It takes as long as it takes to boil water and cook angel hair pasta. That's like three minutes.
It can also be done in one pan if you really feel like slumming it.
You start the spaghetti, then in a separate pan heat garlic in oil. Dump the pasta into the garlic-flavored oil and boom, your'e done.
Most recipes insist on big pile of fresh Italian parsley. But you can use anything, cilantro, basil, whatever. Fresh tarragon is interesting.
Most recipes insist you do NOT add cheese, that is blasphemous, but I like it with cheese, especially very good cheese, along with pasta water carried over to thin it. I also like additional vegetables like broccoli cut thinly or asparagus, or snow peas or whatever I happen to have on hand.
This is the perfect late-night meal. And I man perfect.
If not late-night, then I really really like to roll out my own egg-pasta for a heavier version.
Here are a few of my own. A traditionalist will insist this is not proper aglio y olio. Fine. We saw that Italian guy put a Thai chile pepper in his. Call it something else then. It's the same basic idea. And it is extremely satisfying.
17 comments:
Chip, those are great looking recipes. Just top them off with a shot of soy sauce, yum.
How can you eat pasta without gravy?!
I await Troop's comment to either back me up or not...ya never know. And spinnelli too.
Chip:
This is a great post, bellissima!
Here's the thing, though: I am skeptical about there being a "right" way to do any of this. It's just that when you add this or that, you are either:
- Changing dish X (which is always done thus-and-so) into dish Y (which is totally different, despite being the same except for one or two tweaks), or:
- You are doing dish X in the Neapolitan/Siracusan/Venetian way, how dare you, this is Caserta/Sienna/Tuscany/Rome! We never do it that way!
My perception -- as a non-Italian who has visited Rome and surroundings a few times, and tried to cook a few Italian dishes -- is that Italians are intensely serious about food, and one thing Italians -- as in, living in Italy -- care about is, no mixing-and-matching. In America, we don't care. You want to create a mash-up of Tex-Mex, Chinese, Italian and Russian? Let's do it! This horrifies Italians, when it messes with Italian things.
On one trip to Rome, with some other priests, one of our guys wanted to have spaghetti with meatballs. They don't do that. Meatballs are one course, spaghetti another. He asked politely, and the server reluctantly did it. On that same trip, we were at a different restaurant for lunch, and after days and days of pasta, for reasons of digestive peace I very much wanted some fruit (and nothing else). So while everyone was ordering primi piatti, I politely requested frutta. "No, no, no!" cried the waiter, pointing to the top of the menu. "Con su permisso," I pleaded. He refused again. I asked one of my compatriots, who spoke Italian, to intercede for me. He stomped off in disgust, and returned, slamming a bowl with a couple pieces of fruit in water in front of me.
Reminds me of the Sopranos episode where they go to Italy and Paulie is flummoxed at a restaurant by the absence of macaroni and red sauce, gets served a bowl full of lightly dampened claws and hooves.
I always use bacon. I made it last night in fact for my nieces and nephews in Staten Island.
What I did is a sautéed some onions and fresh garlic. A pound of bacon. A bunch of thin fresh asparagus cut up. Added a cup of white wine. Cooked the macaroni in a separate pot. When it was three quarters cooked I added it to the frying pan and continued to coat it with the sauce. Topped with Pecorino Romano cheese.
Served with a Greek salad. Simple olive oil. Black olives. Feta cheese.
They ate every bite.
Ricpic red sauce is just one of the ways to make pasta.
White clam sauce is great.
Alfredo cream sauce.
Eggs and cheese.
My favorite is actually just dumping some butter and a tub of Polly O riccota on a pound of linguine and going to town.
I watched a show the other day about congestive heart failure and I thought of you. Tell me that you didn't eat a single bite of that food you prepared and we are good.
Don't make me come up there!
Troop doesn't fress (eat) now, he inhales.
Yeah, old standard for me: boil some noodle, toss with Kraft grated parm. Lots of black pepper on top. Toss. Devour. It IS the perfect late night snack.
Deborah:
Caccia y pepe.
I stuck with the salad and some guacamole that I made with brown rice tortilla chips I baked in the oven.
I know my limitations these days but I love to feed the kids.
I like it simple. Garlic, great olive oil, some fresh basil (although tarragon is very good too). And really good sheep milk cheese.
Bacon is fine, but add the egg yokes and make it Carbonara.
I have been doing pasta in cold water just covered in a large frying pan (has to be big enough to hold the pasta across). Then turn up the heat and boil the water. Way faster than heating up a pot of water. The pasta also does not stick together if the water is cold to start. It works well.
I hear you, Troop, sounds like you prepared a meal that they will remember. They better, right?
As for pasta - I just found a box of Barilla brand angel hair that I brought with me when I moved here 7 years ago. It's only slightly past its "Best if Used By" date.
I might add -- on Good Friday, while I'm fasting no less -- that I have given up pasta for the time being. I love it -- too much. That inordinate love has made me fat, and I've banished carbs until my silhouette involves fewer detours from head to toe.
Anyone looking for a really good gluten free pasta? I stumbled on this accidentally.
yikes kinda pricey on Amazon. I tell ya, it's amazingly normal tasting.
I got some at a little healthy hippy place in Paia.
Garofalo Gluten free pasta
why do carbs have to taste so good? The key is moderation. Enjoy, just less.
FMF, thanks! You might like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWlsz493ZEM&t=39s
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