Video:How to Make Spaghetti Aglio Olio

Transcript:How to Make Spaghetti Aglio Olio

Hello, I'm Michele Manfredi for About.com Food. Today I'd like to show you how to make Spaghetti Aglio Olio, which is much easier to make than pronounce.

Preparing to Make Spaghetti Aglio Olio

Were going to start by thinly slicing 6 cloves of garlic. The amount of garlic is optional, but I think between 4-6 cloves is perfect. I'm also going to chop up about a 1/4 cup of Italian parsley. This is such a simple recipe, the only other ingredients beside the garlic and the parsley, is 1/2 cup of good olive oil and Parmesan cheese. I'm going to grate about a cup of that.

Cooking the Pasta for Spaghetti Aglio Olio

On to the pasta, I'm going to bring a large pot of water to boil. Make sure you salt your water very well; it needs to taste like seawater. This is the secret to any great pasta. Of course you're going to cook it to the package directions, but it's going to take about 10 minutes. And the great thing about this recipe is that's how long it takes to make the sauce. By the way one tip, make sure you have a ladle nearby, because we're going to add some of the pasta water to the sauce near the end.

Adding the Ingredients for Spaghetti Aglio Olio

Ok, add your olive oil and sliced garlic to a cold sauté pan, and then turn your heat on to medium. Give it a stir, and then as soon as the garlic starts to bubble, turn your heat down to medium/low. What we want to do here is slowly toast the garlic in the oil until it’s a beautiful golden brown. We want to be really careful here not to get the garlic too brown. If it gets too dark, it will get bitter. You can see here some of the smaller pieces are already beginning to caramelize. So now I know I'm getting close.

Grab your handy ladle, and when the garlic looks like that, turn off the heat, and go ahead and add about a 1/2-cup of your pasta water. The water will stop the garlic from cooking any further. And basically, our sauce is ready.

Ok, by now your spaghetti should be cooked. We're going to drain it really well. Do not rinse, there's a thin layer of starch on your pasta and we don't want to rinse that off, because that's what helps the sauce stick to the spaghetti.

Serving the Spaghetti Aglio Olio

All right, pour that into a large warm pasta bowl. I'm going to grind on a little bit of fresh black pepper, some red pepper flakes, this is to taste, I'm going to add a big pinch of salt, but that of course is also to taste, and now things get really good. Go ahead and pour over your hot garlic oil mixture, and you can see those beautiful slices of golden garlic, I wish you could smell this.

All right to finish, I'm going to sprinkle about 2/3 of the cheese, I'm going to go ahead and toss in the parsley, and then I'm going to give this a really good mix. And once the spaghetti is coated with that amazing garlic sauce, we're ready to serve. Go ahead and take that to the table, sprinkle over the rest of the cheese and enjoy a truly great bowl of pasta. I really hope you give this super easy recipe a try, enjoy.

Thanks for watching. For more information, please visit us on the web at About.com.