00:00deliciously fast and easy. It's spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino, a pasta dish you can enjoy
00:09any time, from lunch to a midnight snack, as they do in Italy. It's easy, yes, but not everyone can
00:16achieve the silky sauce that Italians crave. And so today on Piatto Recipes we'll show you how to
00:24make a simple spaghetti aglio e olio with a sauce that coats every strand of pasta with a perfect
00:31cremina, as they say in Italy. Let's start with the ingredients. Spaghetti, a classic choice. The
00:39garlic, one clove per person. The extra virgin olive oil, three tablespoon a person and the chili pepper,
00:49one fresh chili pepper a person. But it's very important to choose the right one, as we will see
00:55later on. Finally, the parsley. Yes, it's an optional, but it adds a pop of color and freshness at the
01:02end.
01:03Spaghetti aglio e olio is a dish you can whip up in about 10 minutes, just the time it takes
01:08to cook
01:08the pasta. This is what we need. A little pot for hot water and a large skillet where we'll make
01:15our
01:15sofrito and where we'll be cooking our pasta for most of the time. We start by putting the water on
01:21the boil. No salt is added and I'll tell you why in a minute. The garlic, the start of our
01:29dish, can be
01:30prepared in different ways depending on how much of its flavor you want in the dish. The mildest form
01:38would be to leave it in the sweater, as they say in Italian, in camicia. In other words,
01:45leaving the clove in the skin. For more intense flavor, you can thinly slice the garlic or even crush
01:52it, make it a puree. We prefer thin slices because the surface area of the garlic slices release a ton
02:00of
02:00flavor into the oil while the garlic itself remains delicate. Best of all, you can even remove the
02:09garlic slices if you have guests who do not enjoy pieces of cooked garlic.
02:21And now we'll move on to the pepperoncino, the chili pepper. But what should you choose here?
02:26And how much should you use? Here we've got three different types of pepper with different levels
02:33of spice. A jalapeno, a rawit, also known as a Thai pepper or bird eye pepper, and a habanero. The
02:41rawit,
02:42with its 100,000-150,000 Scoville rating, is spicy but not excessively so. With this level,
02:51we're gonna add one pepper per person, minced. After all, we're making aglio e olio and not another
02:58Italian classic which is called arrabbiata, a kind of very spicy pasta. Okay, we're gonna remove the seeds
03:05and be sure not to touch your eyes with your hands until you have washed up well, or alternatively,
03:11use food-safe gloves while handling these peppers.
03:23If you want to achieve silky cremina, that is the goal of so many Italian pasta sauces,
03:29we need to take a minute to talk about the pasta itself, how to select a brand,
03:34and how to cook it for dishes like this. Here we have three common pasta brands,
03:40found in Italy and abroad. Let me say right off the bat, don't buy barilla for this dish,
03:44since it won't release enough starch during the cook time, and we need starch to create a creamy sauce.
03:49Between rumo and molisana, it's a tougher call. But we have found that molisana pasta produces the most
03:55starch, so we're using it here. But here, take a look at the difference in structure between the
04:00barilla and molisana, which is trafilata al bronzo, which means that the pasta stamp or cutter is made
04:07of bronze. Is that a big deal? Yes, it is. This creates a more porous pasta surface, making the pasta
04:14more tasty, better able to bind to pasta sauces and condiments, and yes, it helps the pasta to release
04:21more starch from its surface. Finally, we mince a handful of flat-leaf parsley, which we're going to
04:30add at the end of the cook time. We do save the stems for our sofrito itself.
04:36The water is boiling, we throw the pasta in to cook for two minutes, or maybe less, just enough
04:42time to make the pasta a little flexible before we transfer it to the pan for the rest of the
04:47cooking
04:47time. And again, do not add salt to the water. We'll explain why later. And here we go. While the
04:56pasta
04:56is cooking, we prepare the flavors for our sauce. In a large skillet, we add extra virgin olive oil,
05:04as we said, three tablespoons a person. We're making the pasta for two, so six total here. And in
05:11goes the sliced garlic, minced chili pepper, and a few parsley stems, all at once. We will saute for just
05:20a
05:20couple of minutes, about the same amount of time we're pre-cooking the pasta. In fact, we're doing
05:26these two steps at the same time, to have the pasta ready for the pan, when the sofrito is also
05:32ready.
05:32We do want a garlic that is golden, but not brown. This is very important, because when the garlic gets
05:38brown, it releases flavors that are not so pleasing. The sofrito smells amazing already. And here we go,
05:46just in time for the pasta. Notice how our pasta is still pretty rigid, just a bit flexible.
05:54We add two littles of hot water, and now we're going to cook the pasta like a risotto.
06:00Add in a little of water at a time, when the pasta needs it. In other words,
06:05when the water is absorbed by the pasta. Almost completely, not entirely absorbed.
06:13And we're going to go like this, until the pasta, the spaghetti, are al dente. How do you find out
06:19when it's al dente? Well, first of all, it's written in the pasta package. Second, and more important,
06:26you have to try it. When you feel that it's cooked outside, and has a little bit of a bite
06:32on the inside,
06:33there you have it. That's a pasta cooked al dente. We cooked it two minutes on the pot,
06:39so we have nine minutes to go over here. But of course, I'm going to check around the eight minute
06:44mark, just to be sure. And as for the salt, add it in one minute before the end of the
06:51cooking time.
06:54Cooking the pasta like a risotto isn't any more difficult, nor does it take more time
07:00than cooking it on a pot. It's simply the best way to ensure that all the starch that the pasta
07:07releases
07:08goes where we want it, into our sauce, where it will create an emulsion with our olive oil and form
07:15that beautiful silky cremina. Another advantage to cooking the pasta in this way is that it will soak
07:23up more flavor from our sofrito as it cooks. And again, do not add salt to the water that you're
07:32cooking the pasta in.
07:41The pasta, acting as a sponge, would absorb over the course of the cook time the entirety of this
07:48water that you're giving to it together with the salt. You're going to have a pasta so salty that
07:55you can't even give it to the goats. Perfect! We're going to continue to add water as needed until the
08:03timer goes off. This is the same technique used to make spaghetti alle vongole, for example. Or anytime
08:09we don't have a sauce or somehow the condiment that we use struggles to bind with the pasta. And that
08:16is
08:16the case, for example, when we have only water and olive oil as a condiment. Also, it's the action of
08:24stirring the pasta vigorously that helps release the starch from the outside of the pasta. Check out
08:32our video channel for more examples of this type of cooking. And here we are. Nice tying the salt,
08:44add the parsley leaves. Just leave some aside for garnishing the plate.
08:52And there you have it! What an amazing dish! Aglio, olio, and peperoncino.
09:00Oh, check our beautiful cremini! I mean, seriously, come take a look at this! Look how creamy this is!
09:05That's an aglio e olio that is cooked to perfection!
09:11Simple, fast, so tempting! In fact, I think I'm gonna have it as a midnight snack tonight! Again!
09:20And buon appetito!
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