Simple cooking is the hardest cooking. That is a hill I am willing to die on. I normally order the simplest dishes at restaurants to see if the chefs know what they are doing. Sometimes you order the most simple dish, such as pasta aglio e olio, and you get a total disaster. Because the dish is really complicated to make, even though it only contains five ingredients:
The name states the ingredients: aglio, garlic, and olio, oil.
As soon as you add anything else, or take anything out, you are not making the same dish anymore.
But I love to experiment, I love to create new dishes. And if I am correct, most of these traditional Italian pasta dishes originated from poor families cooking with what they had in stock.
Garlic chives grow abundantly in my garden. In fact, it has become somewhat of a weed growing even between the bricks. But this is awesome because free food, my brain would say.
In any case, why not use garlic chives in something akin to aglio e olio? That is, why not use the same technique and make a dish from what is growing in my garden?
And there this dish originated one early morning when I watered the garlic chives.
Most Italian pasta dishes are relatively simple: emulsify the water component with the oil one. But you always have the cheese or egg to help you. But in aglio e olio you do not have that luxury. You only have oil and pasta water. But follow along and you will see if you get the technique right, you will be a master of pasta!
I begin by chopping the garlic chive up into two sections: the more white part and the leaves.
After you cut the garlic chive, get some pasta water boiling and slowly heat up the oil.
TIP for cooking pasta
A tip is to always use less pasta water to boil your pasta in. Remember to not add too much salt. Adding less water results in starchier water to make a better and thicker sauce!
Whilst the pasta is boiling, slowly cook the garlic chives in the oil you are heating. You should only slowly fry them otherwise they will burn.
Do not drain the pasta water, you will need it! Mix the pasta with the oil and garlic chives. I also add the top part of the garlic chive now.
The trick is to vigorously mix at this stage. The agitation in the pan will begin to emulsify the oil and pasta water. You will know when you did a good job:
The emulsification is not that strong. So you should dish up and eat it immediately.
This is a quick dish with some technique required to make it, but the results are spectacular. You will want to eat it every day.
I hate that I love pasta so much. Thus the reason for always experimenting and trying new combinations. Getting stuck on one recipe is not a bad thing, but life is so short: go experiment!
This is by no means authentic. I think it is healthy either way, garlic is healthy, garlic chives are healthy, and olive oil is healthy. This pasta dish, I would argue, is healthy. Go out and try it, try it with your own herbs from your own garden.
The photographs are my own, taken with my iPhone. The musings are also my own. The recipe is something I thought up when I watered the plants. I have no idea if someone has tried it before. Happy cooking, and stay safe!
