Portobello Aglio Olio

The potluck in the previous entry saw me making some Portobello Pasta using an Aglio E Olio recipe that I kind of came up myself after browsing a few recipes online. But since I've got access to an enormous library of cookbooks recently, I decided to pick out an Italian cookbook and follow a proper Aglio E Olio recipe.

Since I'm such a visual person, I chose a recipe from The Food of Italy by Sophie Braimbridge and Jo Glynn. Nevermind that I had never heard of them before, or even seen this cookbook before. The photos in them were tantalising enough for me. They also seemed to provide a comprehensive list of recipes, from Antipastis to Pizzas and Breads, to Desserts.

Their Spaghettini Aglio E Olio recipe was different from the one I used the other day in that the garlic was not painstakingly sliced, and did not have to be browned till crisp. This made preparing the dish a lot easier, of course. But this also meant that the garlic flavour was not as pronounced, though this would be good for people who, unlike me, adore garlic. All I did in addition was add some thickly sliced portobellos and crisp fried basil, which may have adulterated this simple traditional pasta dish, but gave the dish a little more character.

Guess who wanted some, but couldn't get any. It was difficult resisting those pleading bambi eyes though.

My Fettucine Aglio E Olio

Serves 4

Ingredients

400g Spaghettini

90ml olive oil

5 garlic cloves, crushed

1/4 of a big, red chilli, thinly sliced (optional)

4 Portobello mushrooms, thickly sliced (optional)

a handful of basil leaves, deep fried in olive oil (deep frying is optional)

grated Parmegiano Reggiano

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until al dente.

Heat the oil in large frying pan over low heat.

Add the garlic and chilli and gently fry for about 2 minutes, or until the garlic has softened and slightly browned at the edges.

Just before removing pan from heat, fry basil leaves.

Heat portobellos in about 1 tbspn of the olive oil and a tbspn of water over medium heat until softened and all water has dried up.

Lightly drain the spaghettini, reserving a little of the cooking water.

Return the frying pan to heat and add the spaghettini, and portobellows and toss to coat.

Taste for seasoning with salt and pepper and serve at once with grated parmegiano.