Garlic, olive oil and a special chili pepper

It all began a few days ago, when a chef friend of mine gave me a red pepper I’d never seen before.

It looks like a "bonsai" sweet pepper, but actually it is a variety of chili pepper from the Caribbean among the hottest in the world. 

I thought of using it in one of Campania’s traditional dishes: spaghetti with garlic, oil and chili pepper. It's a recipe not as simple as you think, because you need to follow a few but important steps for the perfect success of the dish.

The essential ingredients are simply: 

spaghetti 

garlic 

chilli pepper 

extravirgin olive oil

In a pan large enough to hold the spaghetti too, you heat the oil (about a tablespoon per person) with the garlic and the chili pepper without the seeds. 

Drop the spaghetti in a large saucepan. When the garlic and chilli start to sizzle in the pan, pour a ladle (or more, it depends on the amount of oil) of the water used to cook the pasta to form a mixture. 

Cook the spaghetti a little, just long enough to get soft. Then pour the spaghetti into the pan and keep stirring it in the mixture of water and oil, just as you would do preparing a risotto. 

In this way your spaghetti won’t be dry, but well seasoned and tasty, mouth watering!

English version by Maurizio de Santis

Special thanks to David Strong

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