Spaghetti with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, oil and chilli / Spaghetti con pomodori secchi, aglio, olio e peperoncino

Servings: 4
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“This classic spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino recipe is the ultimate fast food – in the time it takes to cook the pasta you can have the sauce cooked and ready for the table. This dish is known all over Italy.” Antonio Carluccio. “This is the easiest pasta to make and one of the best.” Anna Del Conti A simple dish of spaghetti tossed with garlic, extra virgin olive oil and chilli pepper is suitable as a base to add other ingredients at the very last minute e.g. sun-dried tomatoes, but never cheese. This basic pasta recipe is known all over Italy and particularly popular in Campania and Lazio regions.

Credit: Adapted from a recipe in his book “Pasta” by Antonio Carluccio and Anna Del Conti at https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/peperoncino_99009#recipe-how-to-videos and by Franco at La Caverna Restaurant, Dorchester, UK (an authentic established cellar restaurant offering classy Italian cuisine with excellent vegetarian options).

Ingredients

450g of dried spaghetti
60ml of extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
A handful of flat leaf parsley, stalks removed and leaves finely chopped
1 red chilli, chopped OR ¼ tsp dried chilli flakes
100 g (drained wieght) sun-dried tomatoes in oil drained and finely chopped
Sea salt

Method

Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions. Allow 1 litre of water to every 100g of pasta and add a teaspoon of salt per litre of water.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the garlic and chilli flakes and gently fry over a low heat, until the garlic is softened but not coloured. Stir frequently. At this point stir in the sun-dried tomatoes and parsley and stir until heated through and then remove from the heat.
Lift the cooked pasta from the water, using pasta tongs, and mix directly into the sauce. Keep the pasta water to one side.
Toss the pasta really well through the oil, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and chilli, adding a little more cooking water from the pasta if it is too dry, as you want the garlicky hot oil to really cling to the spaghetti.
Serve straight away.
If you like, you can toss through a tablespoon of grated vegetarian pecorino cheese on top.