Aglio E Olio With Fresh Prawns - Pasta

Method

• 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.
• 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.
• By now, the spaghetti should be al dente do a taste test and see if its 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 wouldnt 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.
• Notes:.
• 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.
• 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 didnt need to add additional salt to the overall dish.
• Do note that this rule applies only for aglio e olio dishes!
• Other pasta dishes Ill only use 1/2 tablespoon of table salt.
• Im 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.
• 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.