Are you the type of person that burns a boiled egg? Then have no fear, you are in good company.
As easy as ABC
Mrs Sensible decided that today was my cookday and I was to cook spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino. My cookday? “It is easy” she said, “there are only 4 ingredients. Olive oil, garlic, chilli peppers and spaghetti”. This is fine, but I cook bacon, eggs, mushrooms and fried bread, that is when I have supplies of Bacon from the UK in the freezer. I don’t do Italian, even my Sicilian aunty turned her nose up at my tuna and pasta spaghetti concoction, and she loves me to bits, plus I laced it with wine.
“Okay” I said to Mrs Sensible, “how do I cook it?” “Pan fry a little garlic in the small frying pan and a little chilli pepper. While you are doing this, cook some spaghetti when it is done add the spaghetti to the frying pan add a bit of water from the spaghetti, fry until it is done and serve.” she said as she watched her latest Inspector Morse DVD.
Easy peesy lemon squeezie!! What could go wrong?
Lots
I know that before putting any ingredient into a pan, it is important to open a bottle of wine. I chose a fine bottle of Sovrana from the cantina of Marco Bellero.
Sovrana by Marco Bellero
“How much spaghetti?”
“200 grams”
How much oil should I use?
Enough to cover the pan bottom, don’t burn the garlic !!
Uh huh!
Where is the spaghetti?
Bottom cupboard.
No it is not.
yes it is, I will come and get it for you.
Thanks!
The Spaghetti is here and you have burnt the garlic!!
Do I bin it?
Deep sigh, “Yes start again”.
So I started again, I fried a little garlic in a bit of olive oil and started to boil the spaghetti. When I thought the spaghetti was cooked, I wandered into the lounge with a bit of spaghetti hanging from a fork. Just as I waved it under Mrs Sensible’s nose and said “Is this cooked? Inspector Morse shouted “You have killed her, you were his doctor”
“No” she said.
So I wandered back into the kitchen. The garlic looked a little too brown so I took it off the flame.
Mrs Sensible shouted from the lounge “Have you grated the cheese for the spaghetti”
Erh! No
So she came in to rescue me and the spaghetti.
As she chased the garlic around the pan she said “I have never seen garlic so well-burnt”
“Uh huh” I replied
She threw the spaghetti into the frying pan, added some water, fried it and served it into two plates.
What can I say… the wine was very good, however Mrs Sensible declared that she had eaten better pasta.
So here is the recipe if you want to try your hand.
Spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino
Spaghetti with garlic, olive oil and chilli pepper (and a glass of wine)
Difficulty
Allegedly very easy
Preparation time
2 minutes
Cooking time
15 minutes
Serves
2
Ingredients:
200 grams of spaghetti
1 small red chilli pepper – seeded & chopped
2 medium cloves of fresh garlic (squashed but unpeeled)
2 -3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
Salt, to season the pasta and to throw over your left shoulder for good luck.
1 bottle of good wine to drink while you cook.
Specialist Equipment
A large frying pan
A deep pan
Sharp knife
A good cook
A glass for the wine
How to cook:
1) Discard the seeds from the chilli pepper and chop the pepper into small pieces.
2) Cook the pasta according to the pack instructions and season with salt. If there are no instructions, E mail Mrs Sensible.
3) In a shallow pan, place 4 tbsp of olive oil and heat until hot, then add the garlic and chilli pepper. Cook over a low to medium heat until the garlic starts to turn golden (do not allow to burn)
4) When the pasta is ready, drain & transfer pasta into the shallow pan with the oil, garlic and chilli. Toss together and allow to heat through for approx 2-4 minutes. Serve immediately.
If you try this and it works, let me know. If you try this and you fail, please do not feel bad it is a very difficult dish.
Englishman in Italy 
Only you could share a recipe with such humor. 🙂 Don’t feel bad, my ex can burn water. He doesn’t even attempt to make a cup of coffee anymore as he ruins it.
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I have tried to cook this two or three times and failed miserably each time. It is one of my favourite dishes.
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Hurrah! You’re back again! And you didn’t burn your house down so I’d say that was a bordering on successful cooking session! Congrats! Still on the diet??
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Diet ! what diet? Back on the wine diet.
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That’s my favourite one!
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fabulous recipe, I will try it out. I think that caramelised garlic gives extra flavour to a dish (please inform Mrs Sensible that this is the correct term when garlic or onions go to the Dark Side). Lucky Mrs Sensible to be able to watch telly whilst someone else makes dinner. I wouldn’t complain 🙂
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It is a great recipe, it is supposed to be quick and easy.. ha ha ah
I love burnt toast, can I call it caramelised toast?
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I giggled, I laughed, I cried with laughter, well I chuckled. This is too funny. And you are good. Food Network should hire you. If you had a show it would be the best on American TV. And the receipe would be hard for anyone, even people with an uncommon amount of common sense. 🙂
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A TV show, what a good idea, maybe I should put a recipe book together titled The food I would like to cook but can’t.. 🙂
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Honestly that is not a bad idea. It would be really funny- I am sure of that. 🙂
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I will get my thinking cap on…
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I would definitely buy that book! You should do it, I bet it would get more people cooking… what could be better… great recipes, lots of red wine with each one and plenty of humour to make you laugh whilst experimenting! Mrs Sensible could give you all those wonderful Italian recipes and you can write about your attempts at recreating them… perfetto! 😀
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I finished the my little book https://englishmaninitaly.org/my-little-book, I was just finishing a final edit when the publisher said “add the recipes” so I have maybe another 2 weeks of work to get it right, then it is off to the printers. I will put you down for one. 🙂
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Fantastic! Definitely put me down for one! Please let us all know as soon as it’s good to go so we can all spread the happy news… it’s sure to be a hit, can’t wait! 😀
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Many thanks, I will
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Love the idea of your cookery book! I like the recipe – I will give it a try, but may leave out the chillis, or perhaps only use a tiny bit.
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Hi Elaine, you need the chilli to give it a bit of a bite, just don’t use too much.
When I sent the first draft of my little book to the publisher, I suggested a menu after each chapter, mainly because food plays a huge part in Italy. He came to stay after the huge winds that blew the shed down. While we were discussing the book, he said I should include the recipes, hence I threw one up here to see what you lot thought.
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I will take your advice and use a little chilli and see how I go.
Including recipes in your little book sounds like a very good idea.
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4 recipes finished erm ahh a couple more to do.
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sounds great and i can appreciate your ‘difficulty level.’ )
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Hi Ksbeth,
Choosing the difficulty level was the easy bit, trying not to burn the garlic was the hard bit.
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well it certainly takes a special skill set ) beth
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That sounds a very difficult recipe because garlic can go from perfect and fragrant to overdone and bitter in a nanosecond. It is very unforgiving!
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It is supposed to be a very easy recipe, I think the garlic went from white to brown as I took a slug of the wine I was tasting. 🙂
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I’ll grab the wine and give chef J the rest of the recipe. Maybe, possibly, sometimes I do this just so he knows it’s a waste of time to ask me to do it in the first place….maybe.
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I find cooking is a great way of drinking some fab wine, it is just a shame this attempt went so badly wrong. I cook a mean sheperds pie 🙂
get J to have a go at the recipe, Mrs Sensible says it is easy and I have to say when I watch her cook it, it does look easy.
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This is great… you crack me up! Will definitely be trying that recipe out this weekend when my daughter comes to stay (she’ll like the chilli whereas my sons won’t be too keen, she’ll also be able to join me with the wine part of the ingredients!) will let you know how it turns out! Getting the garlic just right is always the dodgy bit… love MM’s comment about anything that goes to the dark side as being ‘caramelised’ brilliant! 🙂
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That is because MM is as mad as a hatter. Please let us know how the cooking goes at the weekend.
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She is but wonderfully funny like you, she always cracks me up too! Will do, on the cooking! 😉
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I need to pop over to her blog to see if she has got her driving licence organised.
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At our house, hubs does all the cooking. It’s much better for everyone that way. I love the prep work, the chopping and squashing (maybe because it involves sharp instruments) but I simply cannot be bothered to cook it up into any semblance of anything edible.
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Mrs Sensible normally cooks, I just play at being the head cook and master of the kitchen
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The wine should be easy, though I would have to make some substitutions to the recipe. The main substitution would be to call for take out instead of cooking.
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Ha ha ha, book me an Indian take away
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You are so funny, I enjoy your writing. And I’m going to try your (Mrs. Sensible’s) recipe the next time multiple children and spouses drop in unexpectedly for dinner. It will be a great side-dish to stretch the main dish for all the additional mouths.
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I am so pleased that you enjoy my blog 🙂 and you should try the recipe because if you get it right it is wonderful. Mrs Sensible and I have spent the past 3 days creating and typing up 14 recipes to follow each chapter of my little book, so only another 16 to go.
One of the nice fellow bloggers said it was a good idea, so we shouted to the publisher “hold the press” we need to make some alterations..
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I loved your dialogue; its pretty common in our house too 🙂
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Thanks Francesca, The above is just as it happened
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I like your wine menu; if it’s any consolation I’m pants in the kitchen too! You can’t be brilliant at everything
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ha ha, this is true…
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buoni buoni, buonissimi!! Mrs Sensible hasn’t yet given you a teaching lesson about the DIFFERENT types of spaghetti? Barilla n. 2, n. 5, ecc ecc, all the different thickness? next cooking lesson please, it’s so funny! but I would never leave you alone in the kitchen…
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Good heavens woman I know the different types of spaghetti!!
There is that long thin stuff, little tube stuff and pretty bows, and we have packets of itsy teenie weenie stuff that gets thrown in soup…. SO there 🙂
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ha! 😉
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