636. Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

Spaghetti aglio e olio is one of those classic Italian dishes which I’ve often heard about but never tried before. Spaghetti with nothing but olive oil and garlic just sounded kind of dull to me, and also really heavy if you’re having all that pasta and olive oil with very little else to lighten the dish up and cut through the stodge. I decided to give it a go for my lunch though so I heated up the olive oil with a couple of cloves of sliced garlic and mixed in the spaghetti. I found that my suspicions were at least part right. Surprisingly it wasn’t too heavy, the garlic seemed to be enough to give it a kick and cut through the oil; it was dull though. The first couple of mouthfuls were lovely, the strong garlic flavour really came through, but after that I was just craving for there to be something else. Some other flavour or texture to mix it up a little. I think perhaps this would be nice as a side dish, but I wouldn’t have it as a bowl of pasta on its own again.

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