Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

This is the dish Italians make at one in the morning, and its reputation as the simplest pasta hides the fact that it is easy to make badly. There are two ways it goes wrong, and both are avoidable.

Cold pan, low heat

Dropping garlic into hot oil sears the outside before the inside has released anything. You get harsh, slightly acrid garlic sitting in oil that tastes of nothing much.

Putting the sliced garlic into cold oil and warming them together does the opposite. The garlic gives its compounds up to the oil slowly as the temperature climbs, and by the time it is pale gold the oil itself is the sauce.

Five minutes on low. It should never sizzle aggressively.

Burnt garlic cannot be fixed

The window between golden and bitter is very short, and browning continues in the residual heat of the pan after you take it off the hob. Pull it a shade earlier than looks right.

If it does go dark brown, start again. Bitter garlic oil will carry through the entire dish and there is nothing to hide behind in a recipe with five ingredients.

The emulsion is the sauce

Six tablespoons of oil poured over pasta gives you oily pasta. The same oil tossed hard with starchy pasta water becomes something else — a pale, slightly thickened sauce that coats each strand.

This works because the dissolved starch acts as an emulsifier, holding oil and water together. It needs three things: enough starch in the water, enough heat, and vigorous agitation. Cook the pasta in less water than usual, keep a mug of it back, and toss like you mean it.

Chilli, and the name

The full name in Naples is often aglio, olio e peperoncino — the chilli is not really optional. It is heat as background warmth rather than a feature, so a teaspoon of flakes for two people is about right.

Finishing it properly

Undercooking the pasta by a minute matters, because it finishes in the pan where it can absorb the sauce rather than plain water. This is the same principle behind every good Italian pasta dish and it is worth building into the habit.

Parsley goes in at the very end, off direct heat, so it stays green and fresh rather than turning dark.

Nutrition

Around 610 calories a serving, with most of the fat coming from olive oil — largely monounsaturated. It is not a light dish, but the ingredients are honest ones and it costs almost nothing to make.

Adding a tin of drained anchovies with the chilli turns it into a different, saltier dish worth knowing about, and a handful of toasted breadcrumbs on top gives it texture that stands in for cheese.