Aglio, olio e peperoncino (Pasta with Garlic, Oil and Hot Pepper)

Here’s another super simple pasta dish called pasta con aglio, olio e peperoncino, or just aglio e olio for short.

At its core, it’s nothing more than pasta dressed with garlic and hot pepper lightly sautéed in olive oil. I call it the “mother of all pasta dishes” since its garlic and oil base forms the foundation for countless other pasta sauces. And because it’s so quick and easy to make, pasta con aglio, olio e peperoncino is a popular impromptu midnight snack the Italians call una spaghettata di mezzanotte.

I’m sure all the Italians and Italo-Americans out there have grown up with this pasta, but I have always been surprised at how many non-Italians have never had it, or even heard of it.

The basic recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

For 4-6 servings:

• 400g (14 oz) spaghetti (or linguine)
• 3-4 garlic cloves, peeled and slightly crushed
• 2-3 whole peperoncini (dried hot red peppers)
• Enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your skillet
• A few sprigs of fresh parsley, finely chopped (optional)
• Salt to taste

Directions

Put water on to boil for the pasta.

While the water is coming to a boil,  sauté the garlic in the olive oil, along with the peperoncino, on low heat until the garlic is lightly golden brown, then turn off the heat. Do not let the garlic burn, or it will turn bitter.

Remove the garlic. Add the chopped parsley if using.

When the water comes to a vigorous boil, salt very well and add your pasta—either spaghetti or linguine—and cook till al dente.

Drain and pour into a warmed bowl, then pour the oil and garlic mixture on top. Mix thorough, taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed, then serve and eat immediately. You can add more chopped parsley on top for color.

Alternative method

Add the pasta, slightly underdone, along with a ladleful of pasta water, directly into the skillet where you’ve sautéed the garlic and hot pepper. Let simmer over a lively flame until the pasta is fully cooked and has absorbed the liquid.

Notes

As simple as it is, there are some tricks to making this dish.

First off, because there is nowhere to ‘hide’ bad ingredients or bad technique when you make “ajo e ojo” (the dialect name for this dish), you need best quality, fruity olive oil and fresh garlic and, of course, imported durum wheat pasta, or the dish will disappoint.

The use of whole, dried red peppers is also important. I don’t really care for pepper flakes in this dish, as it is too easy for them to overwhelm the other flavors. And they tend to burn very easily which, like garlic, turn them bitter. If you only have the flakes around, add them at the very end, just before you turn off the heat.

The key trick to a good aglio e olio, in my book, is to saute the garlic and hot pepper over very low heat, then let the oil cool a bit before you add it to the pasta. Turn off the heat as soon as the garlic becomes a light brown. This technique allows the garlic flavor to permeate the oil more thoroughly and produces an agreeably ‘sweet’ garlic taste due to the gentle cooking. This actually runs contrary to some recipes, which tell you to pour hot oil over the pasta—something I find produces gummy pasta.

Variations

There are other special techniques that are sometimes recommended for making this dish. Indeed, everyone seems to have their personal ‘secret’ method. One calls for frying the garlic is a minimal amount of oil, and then add raw oil to the pasta and mixing. This technique brings out the olive oil flavor more forcefully, as cooking tends to ‘dull’ the flavor of olive oil.

Another version would have you remove the cooked garlic and red pepper and grind them in a mortar and pestle, which seems a bit ‘fussy’ to me, but perhaps worth a try.

Finally, more recently I’ve adopted the alternative method described above, where you add the pasta to the skillet with some of its cooking water when it’s still underdone, then finish cooking it in the garlicky oil. It’s actually easier to pull off than the other method and the mouth feel is less ‘greasy’ as most of the oil gets absorbed into the pasta.

A common variant of this dish is to add bread crumbs to the oil. Another variant calls for both bread crumbs and rosemary. Others add anchovies, although this would then, in my book at least, make this a pasta e alici. I have even had some friends from Campania heartily recommend making this dish with grated parmigiano–something I had previously considered near blasphemy.

Angelina’s “ajo ojo”

Angelina, by the way, usually didn’t make her ajo e ojo with peperoncino but with copious amounts of ground black pepper. I’m not really sure why, and I never asked her, but I suspect that when she came to the US, dried red peppers where in short supply so, like immigrants everywhere, she looked for substitutes. I’ve never see it made that way except by her, but it was also very nice, and I occasionally make it that way when I’m feeling nostalgic…