Pasta Recipes

The best olive oil pasta dishes have almost nothing in them. What they have instead is technique — specifically, the emulsion.

Aglio e olio, properly

Four ingredients. Almost everyone overcooks the garlic and skips the emulsion, and then wonders why it tastes thin.

You need

• 400 g spaghetti
• Six cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• 120 ml extra virgin olive oil
• A pinch of dried chilli
• Parsley, chopped
• Salt

Method

Boil the pasta in well-salted water. While it cooks, warm the oil and garlic together in a cold, wide pan over a low heat — the garlic should turn pale gold, never brown. Add the chilli off the heat. Lift the pasta into the pan a minute before it is done, with a ladle of the starchy cooking water. Now the important part: raise the heat and toss hard, continuously, for a minute. The starch and oil will emulsify into a glossy sauce that clings. Add parsley, a final raw drizzle of oil, and serve.

Use: Intense — the whole dish is the oil.

Raw tomato and olive oil pasta

A summer dish that needs no cooking beyond the pasta itself.

You need

• Very ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
• A clove of garlic, crushed to a paste with salt
• A generous 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
• Basil, torn
• Short pasta
• Salt

Method

Combine the tomatoes, garlic, oil, basil and a good pinch of salt in a wide bowl. Leave it at room temperature for at least an hour — this is not optional, the salt draws the juice out and the oil turns it into a sauce. Cook the pasta, drain it, and tip it hot into the bowl. Toss. The heat of the pasta wakes the basil and the oil. Serve immediately.

Use: Smooth or Intense, depending on how much you want the oil to speak.

A word on quantity

Most recipes under-specify olive oil because the writer is being polite about fat. If the oil is good, it is the flavour, not the lubricant — measure generously and taste.