I am a huge fan of this dish.  So much, I’ve already posted this recipe twice on my site at Pasta with Garlic and Oil and Linguine with Garlic and Oil. It is basically the same recipe from my friend Chef Ricco DeLuca but they are both worth checking out because of the different explanations provided with each post.

Now I have the opportunity to offer a third spaghetti aglio e olio (pasta and olive oil) from Chef Dawn Thomas who I just interviewed this week at my Novice2Pro chef interviews. Dawn’s recipe is very similar to Chef Ricco’s but she adds red chili flakes, parmesan cheese and substitutes basil for parsley.

What really distinguishes her recipe from Chef Ricco’s are the techniques used. Dawn thinly slices the garlic while Ricco browns it whole. Chef Ricco gets the pan and oil hot before starting while Dawn lets it heat gradually.

Is one technique better than the other? I think the cooking technique that works best for you and provides the flavor you are looking for is the one to stick with. Give both techniques a try and let me know which one you like best.

Dawn is from Canada and some of the terms she uses are different from what I may typically use. I’ll try to point these out.

Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil

Ingredients

1 - 2 cloves of garlic
1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt for pasta water (1 tsp per quart of water)
1/2 pound (200 grams) pasta
1/2 cup cooking water (from pasta)
Salt (to taste)
2 - 4 fresh basil leaves
Parmesan cheese (to taste)

How to Make Spaghetti Aglio e Olio at Home

Timing is important when preparing this dish so have your ingredients prepped, equipment ready to go and have fun.

Preheat your oven to the lowest setting and bring a large pot of water to boil. While the water is heating, thinly slice (émincé) the garlic and measure out the chili flakes.

Place a large, non-stick skillet onto the stovetop and add half of the oil, followed by the garlic and chili flakes. At this point, don’t turn the heat on. Just let this sit while the pasta water comes to a boil.

Once the water has come to a boil, add the salt and stir. With the water at a rumbling boil, add the pasta, stirring so it doesn’t stick together.

Turn up the heat under your skillet to medium and let the garlic cook slowly. You’ll want to spread the garlic out in the pan a little so it cooks evenly but not too much or it may burn. As soon as you hear the garlic start to sizzle, remove it from the heat.

Heat your plates in the oven to warm up as the pasta finishes cooking. When the past is al-dente, remove and reserve ½ cup of cooking water, drain the pasta and add it to the pan with garlic and oil.

Raise the heat back to medium and add the reserved pasta water. Add a pinch of salt, tear and add the basil leaves over top. Toss and continue to cook for a few minutes until the water cooks off. Turn off the heat; add the remaining olive oil, some freshly grated Parmesan cheese and toss to combine.

Remove the warmed plates from the oven and portion out the pasta. Serve immediately with a touch more grated Parmesan cheese and enjoy.

To watch Chef Thomas demonstrate this recipe, go to Rouxbe.com

Related Topics

Pasta with Garlic and Oil

Linguine with Garlic and Oil

More Ideas for Pasta with Garlic and Oil

Strozzapreti, Porcini, Zucca & Tartufo

Yesterday I interviewed my friend Lola about truffles, where they come from, how are they found, why they are so expensive and why they are a national cooking treasure. You can read about them at All About Truffles. As part of the interview, Lola offered up this wonderful recipe for Strozzapreti, Porcini, Zucca & Tartufo.  I know what porcini mushrooms are and that tartufo is the Italian name for truffles but what about Strozzapreti and Zucca.

Strozzapreti & Zucca

After a quick search on the Internet I learned Strozzapreti is a type of pasta that is hand-rolled and looks like an elongated form of cavatelli. The word strozzapreti is Italian for “priest choker” and there are several stories as to how this pasta received this unfortunate name. They all seem to describe some sort of anger at the church for one reason or another by the people of Rome and Tuscany and in their frustration decided to give this pasta its origin.

The dough is made differently depending on where in Italy you are. Basically it is made with wheat flour, water, salt and eggs or egg whites although Parmesan cheese is often added in Emilia. There is also a baked pasta dish calle strozzapreti that consists of spinach that is combined with ricotta cheese and rolled into balls and baked.

Zucca is the Italian word for squash but it is also used for pumpkin as called for in this recipe. Lola says she like to make this dish when the colder weather rolls in.

Strozzapreti, Porcini, Zucca & Tartufo

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the Strozzapreti
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup mineral water (not sparkling!)
A pinch of salt

Sift the flour in a large mixing bowl, add the salt and water and knead the dough until a thick lumpless ball forms, this should take no longer than 6 minutes, as over kneading will make the dough excessively hard. Divvy up the dough in apricot-size balls and separate them on your work surface (preferably wooden) dusted with more flour.

You can now proceed to shaping it into your strozzapreti. Roll the dough balls flat with a dusted rolling pin, to a 1/2 to 3/4 inch thickness. Fold the flattened dough over like a burrito and cut 1/2 inch slices. Undo the strands and flour them too to avoid stickage.

Now to obtain the typical strozzapreti shape, you have to take each individual strand and roll it between your palms. The result is a ‘rolled up towel’ shape, one very suitable for virtually “grabbing” the sauce.

Dust a kitchen towel with flour and rest the strozzapreti on it for about 30 minutes before cooking.

—————————————————————————————————-

(Here’s a video I found that shows the technique for shaping the strozzapreti pasta as Lola describes)

—————————————————————————————————-

The Sauce

1 cup fresh porcini mushrooms
1 cup fresh pumpkin pulp, diced
1 small black truffle (if you can get your hands on the delicate white Alba variety, even better)
1 sprig of fresh sage
7 fl oz. whole milk
1/4 cup butter
Salt & pepper to taste

Clean the porcini by rubbing them gently with a damp cloth and chopping off the soiled part of the stems. Slice the larger ones and halve the smaller caps and stems. In a large enough skillet, sauté the pumpkin in butter and sage for 3 minutes, over vivacious heat. Add the milk, lower the heat and cook for 5 more minutes. Now add the chopped mushrooms, adjust seasoning and cook for 10 more minutes.

In the meantime bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a rolling boil and cook the strozzapreti al dente (this will take a lot less time than regular dried pasta, so keep a close watch).

Drain the pasta and transfer it to the warm skillet where the sauce is, and blend well off the burner. Dish out and then sliver the tartufo wafers directly in the individual plates.

No Parmigiano this time, the tartufo would otherwise suffer.

A good wine for this cold weather extravaganza is a Colli del Trasimeno or any rosé that will allow the mixture of flavors to remain intact while sustaining the contrast between the pasta’s tenacious nature and the sauce’s velvety softness.

Buon appetito!

Rigatoni with Sausage and Fresh Mozzarella Recipe

Last night my wife took my youngest to knitting class so my 11 year old and I decided to prepare a delicious pasta dinner together. I didn’t want to go to the grocery store and wanted to finish up some leftovers like the link of cooked Italian sweet sausage from Sunday and that 1/2 egg of fresh mozzarella cheese.

We came up with this simple pasta dish on the fly.  In the time it took us to cook the pasta, we were able to prep and prepare a simply delicious sauce. My daughter picked out the mezzi rigatoni from the pantry but a penne pasta would have worked just as well. I wouldn’t use spaghetti or linguini for this dish because of the sauce.  Heartier pastas work well with heartier sauces, and this was definitely a hearty sauce.

Sausage - we used some leftover sausage that I pan roasted in our wood burning oven but I think you could use fresh sausage too. In fact, if I had not already cooked the sausage, I would have used fresh but removed it from the casing and browned it up a bit.

Brown Stock - brown stock, also called Glace de Viande, is a combination of beef and veal stock that is used by professional chefs for making soups, stews and sauces. It’s one of the first things culinary students learn to make in culinary school. I always have on hand a commercial brown stock reduction called Glace de Viande Gold that comes in a highly concentrated reduction. I used approximately 1/2 ounce of this product with 1/2 cup of pasta water but you could use a homemade or commercial beef stock or even chicken stock if that’s all you have in your pantry.

Mezzi Rigatoni - Mezzi means half-sized so mezzi rigatoni is a half-sized rigatoni pasta. Rigatoni, one of the most popular forms of pasta in Italy, is a tube shaped pasta, larger that penne but without the angled cut on the ends. The translation for riga is lined and rigati is translated as ridged so I guess you can say rigatoni is lined with ridges.

Ingredients

1/2 box (1/2 pound)  of mezzi rigatoni (or hearty pasta shape of your choice)
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 large shallot or 1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 link of Italian sweet sausage (see note)
10 pitted kalamata olives
1/2 large egg fresh mozzarella
salt & pepper
1/2 cup brown stock - glace de viande

How to Prepare

Start by heating up a pot of salted water for the pasta. Be sure to check out my pasta cooking tips.  When the water is at a boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente.

Next, get all your ingredients ready. This is called mise en place. Start by finely chopping the shallot or onion, mincing the garlic, slicing the sausage and slicing the kalamata olives.  Cut the fresh mozzarella into small pieces.

Heat up a small sauce pan and when hot, add the olive oil. When the olive oil is hot but not smoking, add the onion and cook on medium-high heat for a couple of minutes.

Add the garlic, being careful not to let it burn. I will shake the pan or use a wooden spoon to prevent this from happening. I let that cook for about a minute and then added the cooked sausage and kalamata olives.

I let this cook for a minute or two and then add the beef or brown stock. Let this reduce by about half.  I also like to add a little of the water the pasta is cooking in because it has some starch in it from the pasta.  It doesn’t take much—maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup. This starch combined with the cheese and olive oil will help form an emulsion to thicken the sauce and help make sure that the sauce sticks to the pasta. Taste the sauce, and season with salt and pepper.

When the pasta is perfectly cooked “to the tooth,” drain it and add it to a serving bowl. Add the cut up mozzarella cheese and then the sauce. The heat from the pasta and the sauce should melt the fresh mozzarella.

Serve immediately in warmed bowls.

My 11 year old daughter enjoyed this dish so much she went back for a fourth helping. Simple to prepare with ingredients we already had on hand.  I encourage you to look in your refrigerator, see what’s leftover, and make your own quick pasta sauce.

Related Posts

Kids Can Cook

How To Cook Pasta