Pasta with garlic and oil – Copyright Coquere
The few, simple and cheap ingredients, which still give a lot of flavours
Pasta with garlic and oil
Pasta with garlic and oil, or as it is called in Italian pasta aglio e olio, tastes lovely. This is a dish that has its origins in Naples. It is also called poor man’s pasta. It is known throughout Italy, and is probably one of the dishes that most people know. The few, simple and cheap ingredients, which still give a lot of flavours, have probably helped to make the dish incredibly popular. This is really budget food and it is very easy to make. Pasta with garlic and oil is eaten almost at all hours of the day, but is said to be extra popular as night food.
Basically, the dish contains only pasta, garlic and extra virgin olive oil. There must be extra virgin olive oil, and often a slightly more expensive quality paste is used. You can easily add more flavours, very common is to have in parsley and dried chili flakes. If you have cheese, lemon, tomatoes and more, you also get a very good and cheap pasta dish. Then, according to the Italians, it cannot be called pasta aglio e olio. Here you have the recipe stated per. person, and you only multiply if you make more.
Ingredients
125-150 g good dried pasta per. person e.g., spaghetti, linguini or the alike
1 garlic clove per. Person
Plenty of chopped fresh parsley (can be omitted)
1-1.5 dl extra virgin olive oil
0.5-1 dl boiling water from the pasta
Salt
Alternative additives
Dried Chili flakes
Parmesan
Lemon juice and lemon zest
Smoked dried paprika spices
Slightly chopped tomatoes
Pepper
Directions
- Start by finely chopping the garlic. If you use parsley.
- Finely chop the stems, these you should have in together with the garlic. Then finely chop the parsley leaves, and set everything aside.
- In a large frying pan, or sauté pan, you have in plenty of olive oil.
- Have plenty of water in a large pot. Pasta should be cooked in very salty water, and around the Mediterranean they say that the water should be as salty as the Mediterranean. Cook as directed on the package, but cook it al dente. That is, not overcooked, but so that it has some chewing resistance. This is important because the pasta continues to cook after you pour off the water.
- When the pasta is nearing the end of the cooking time, put the frying pan on medium heat, add in the garlic and if desired the parsley stalks. Add some of the pasta water. Stir, making sure the garlic does not burn.
- When the pasta is done, pour off the boiling water, and have the pasta in the frying pan with the oil and garlic. Mix everything well, so that the pasta is well mixed with olive oil and garlic.
- Stir constantly for 60-90 seconds. The last 15-20 seconds, before you are completely done, you have in most of the chopped parsley leaves.
Served: Transfer to a suitable plate. Pour over remnants of olive oil and garlic, which are left in the frying pan. Sprinkle over some of the fresh parsley.
If you now want, you can add other alternative spices and cheese. If you want to use chopped tomatoes, you must add the tomato in the frying pan beforehand at the same time as the garlic.
Allergy: Gluten. Lactose free. Made easily gluten-free by using gluten-free pasta. There is a high FODMAP in garlic, but one clove is not much. Thus, it can be tolerated by a part that reacts to FODMAP based on its own tolerance limit.
Read more about the origin of pasta with garlic and oil Pasta aglio e olio
Read more about the term al dente Al dente