1. Fill a pot with water (about 1 litre). Add in 1 tablespoon of table salt to season the water. When the water is boiling, add in the spaghetti. Stir the spaghetti occasionally to prevent them from sticking to each other. 2. When the spaghetti is cooking, heat the olive oil in a frying pan over low heat. Add in the diced garlic and let them cook gently, stirring frequently. When the garlic is turning a light golden brown, push the garlic aside (away from the heat source) and add in the chili padi (if using) and prawns. Cook gently until the prawns are pink in colour on one side. Flip the prawns and continue cooking till pink throughout and thoroughly cooked. Take care not to let the garlic burn! Remove the frying pan from the heat. 3. By now, the spaghetti should be al dente – do a taste test and see if it’s the consistency you like. Scoop out some pasta water and drain the pasta. Immediately add the pasta in to the frying pan with the garlic, prawns and chili padi. Add in the chopped parsley and freshly ground black pepper. Toss the pasta and the other ingredients together, adding a little pasta water if necessary to moisten the dish (you wouldn’t want to flood the pasta!) and taste to see if it needs additional seasoning. Scoop the pasta and the prawns into serving plates and serve immediately. 4. Notes: 5. To cook an aglio e olio, prepare everything before starting to cook. The garlic requires a lot of attention so it may be difficult to multi-task while cooking the garlic. 6. A rule that I used when cooking pasta for aglio e olio: 1 litre of water to 1 tablespoon of table salt. This will salt the pasta well and most of the time I didn’t need to add additional salt to the overall dish. Do note that this rule applies only for aglio e olio dishes! Other pasta dishes I’ll only use 1/2 tablespoon of table salt. 7. I’m not a huge fan of chili so this dish is not very spicy (plus I always removed the chili seeds, which is the main source of heat for chili). If you like the dish to be extra hot, do use more chilli than specified. 8. The most important thing: trial and error! My pasta requires about 8-10 minutes to cook, so I started to cook the garlic only after I added the pasta into the hot water. If your pasta requires a longer time to cook, start cooking the garlic later and vice versa. If the garlic is already cooked but the pasta is not ready, remove the frying pan from the heat and reheat the garlic gently when the pasta is almost cook. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nutrition
Ingredients
