When thinking to pasta the first that comes to my mind is spaghetti, and when thinking to spaghetti the first is with tomato sauce, but the second is Aglio Olio e Peperoncino, because is the recipe good for any occasion, is the pasta that feed everybody and make everybody happy, and most important is the pasta that you can make when your pantry is empty.

That’s why if you ask any italian about this pasta, it will recall memories of an unexpected visit and improvised meal, a late night “spaghettata” after a hangout with friends or the everyday pasta when you don’t have time or you don’t want to cook anything too sophisticated.

The Ingredients

When your pantry is empty and your fridge is lonely, when you live in Italy, you still have a bottle of olive oil, a clove of garlic forgotten somewhere, dry chilly pepper or powder and of course spaghetti!

Like for any simple recipe it’s essecial the quality of the ingredients and the quality of execution, here we are talking about extravirgin olive oil and pasta al dente.

– serve 4 people

• 6 tablespoon evoo
• 2 clove of garlic
• 1 chilly pepper
• 400gr spaghetti

The Procedure (watch the video)

In a pan warm up the oil togheter with the cloves of garlic crashed and the chilly pepper at taste, turn off the heat just before the garlic brown, to avoid the bitter taste.

In abundant boiling water add one handfull of salt and cook the spaghetti, strain one minute before the timing reported on the package and put your pasta in the pan with the hot olive oil, saute for a minute adding a cup of the pasta water. as the sauce reduce  little bit is time to serve.

Now there are several versions and opinions on the last garnish, never forget it’s a pasta made with what you have at home, so you can add fresh parsley or parmigiano on top, at your taste.

An honourable mention goes to the spicy mix made in Tuscany from a friend, you add 2 teaspoon of this dry mix to the oil and the job is done, we tried last weekend and is very surprising and hot!

Buon Appetito