Serves 4
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 35 minutes
Ingredients
· 2 teaspoons (or to taste) salt for boiling pasta water
· 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
· 12 cloves garlic — cut into slices as thin as possible
· 1 whole small chili pepper
· 1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes
· 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
· 4 garlic cloves, finely minced
· 3 tablespoons additional extra virgin olive oil
· 1 pound spaghetti
· 1/2 cup finely minced flat leaf Italian parsley leaves
· 1/2 tablespoon additional minced flat leaf Italian parsley leaves
Instructions
NOTE: Prep & stage all ingredients before you being. Have them ready to add as needed at stove.
Heat salted water in a large pot, readying it for the pasta.
Add cold oil, sliced garlic and the whole chili pepper in a cold sauté or frying pan.
Simmer over low heat to make garlic bubble ever so slightly. Ten minutes after the garlic starts to bubble, add the chili flakes and salt. Gently stir, moving the garlic and peppers. Don't mash the garlic. As it simmers it will become translucent and even gelatinous don't rush this step with unnecessarily high heat.
Sauté the minced garlic in a separate small frying pan over medium heat Keep stirring and let it brown. Just as it crisps and darkens, turn off flame. You want to crisp this garlic while making sure it doesn't burn and turn bitter. Reserve the crisped minced garlic and the oil it was cooked in.
Drop the pasta in well-salted boiling water and stir the sliced garlic becomes completely gelatinous.
Cook the pasta until al dente.
Place serving bowl in the bottom of your kitchen sink with a colander sitting on top of it. This will be used to strain the pasta and warm the serving bowl at the same time.
Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water to thin the finished dish, if needed.
Strain the cooked pasta into, colander filling the serving bowl with hot water. Leave the bowl set in hot water in the sink, and bring the colander filled with pasta back to the stove.
Turn up the heat on the sliced garlic and chili mixture to medium, as it bubbles vigorously. Remove whole chili pepper (optional). Using tongs, add the strained pasta as well as the parsley to the garlic/chili mixture in the sauté pan. Keep mixing the pasta thoroughly into the garlic/chili mixture. Add the reserved pasta cooking water to thin the mixture, if needed.
Carefully empty the hot water from the serving bowl in the sink and bring the bowl to the stove.
Transfer the pasta, sliced garlic, chili and parsley mixture into the dried, hot serving bowl. Top with crispy minced garlic and the oil used to cook the garlic. Serve immediately.