True comfort food in Rome is this spicy and smelly pasta that puts the stomach back in order and makes you smile again.
The Roman dialect, which unfortunately no-one speaks any longer, uses a letter that isn’t present in the Italian alphabet. Therefore garlic becomes ajo and oil becomes ojo!
This dish never fails in impromptu dinners with friends, when you aren’t feeling well, when you’re feeling blue, or when you simply have nothing in the pantry!

Spaghetti with oil, garlic, and chili pepper: ajo, ojo e peperoncino

  • Preparation time: 10 minutes
  • Ingredients for 4 servings
  • Difficulty: Easy recipe

  • Ingredients
  • 12 oz or 320 g of spaghetti
  • Extra virgin olive oil to taste
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 small chili pepper
  • Parsley to taste
  • The grated peel of 1/2 lemon
  • Salt to taste
  1. Instructions
  2. Boil the water in a saucepan.
  3. Remove the peel and core from the clove of garlic and cut it into strips.
  4. In a pan with plenty of oil, add a pinch of salt, the garlic, the chopped chili, and whole parsley stalks. Lightly brown the garlic and then turn off the heat and add a ladle of water.
  5. In the pasta pot, salt the boiling water with coarse salt and toss in the pasta.
  6. Drain three minutes before the end of cooking and pour the spaghetti into the pan with the oil dip, first removing the stalks of parsley. Stir in unsalted boiling water, one ladle at a time, until cooked.
  7. Season with salt if necessary and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Tips to ensure the success of the dish:

  • The sautéed garlic must never get too dark, otherwise it becomes difficult to digest. It is therefore advisable to keep the flame sweet. In this case, if you add a little salt at the beginning, you will avoid burning the garlic.
  • The final creaming of the pasta is essential to ensure that the oil and water are emulsified thanks to the starch contained in the pasta. It is important at this stage to add unsalted boiling water.
  • Often I also add a scratch of lemon zest to make everything very fresh.
  • To best cook the pasta, 1 US quart of water must be considered for every serving.