Pasta Aglio e Olio

Guys, I need some catchphrases.

Do you know how hard it is to write an intro and a closing for every blog post? It’s HARD.  But if I have a catchphrase or two, it would be easier.  Probably.

If you have a suggestion, either comment below or post to my facebook page! Maybe I’ll use it and then we’ll both be not-famous but I’ll be using your suggestion so 🤷🏻‍♀️

Before I start rambling about Pasta Aglio e Olio and why it’s a perfect dish to demonstrate why salt, fat, and acid are the key elements to a delicious dish….

Jump to Recipe

Joke’s on whoever just jumped ahead to the recipe.  It’s all in Korean.  Just kidding I wouldn’t do that.  This time.

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So! First of all, why are salt, fat, and acid so important to tasty food? I’m glad you asked! (“But I didn’t ask,” you begin to say before I kick you into a chair 300-style).  Let’s take each element one by one.

Salt

Why is salt important to flavor? Because science! No really, sodium and chloride are electrolytes that our bodies literally need to function.  Guess what salt is! SODIUM CHLORIDE.  That’s why salt tastes good.  Our bodies need that ish.

Salt also enhances the flavor of the things that we eat.  I tried to read up on why and I found something from the Monell Center which is in Pennsylvania and they literally just research taste and smell which is kind of interesting.  Are they legit? I dunno, but they used some sciencey words (so they must be real) and I basically gathered that salt messes with receptors and makes your taste buds open up and do their job of tasting stuff.  Salt also makes bitter things more palatable and makes meat juicy.  It’s great (in reasonable amounts).

For the salt element in our pasta agilo e olio, we are going salt our pasta water (and use some of that water in our sauce), top our dish with parmesan cheese (which is salty AND fatty, double win), and also salt our sauce to our taste preference.  Salt is important, but don’t get too nuts with it (too much salt is gross and will make you thirsty and can also lead to high blood pressure and other health problems.  Also if your doctor says to restrict or decrease your sodium intake then listen to your gd doctor).

Fat

Yes, fat.  Fat is flavor.  Fat is what gives you mouthfeel (the texture and and sensation in your mouth from food).  Fat makes you feel satisfied after a meal and can keep you feeling fuller longer.  Fat is good for you, provided that you consume mostly healthy fats (like from plants) and in moderate amounts, dammit.

Also, fat traps the compounds that make the aroma of food, which makes it taste and smell good.  It also helps with something called a Maillard reaction, which is a chemical reaction that causes amino acids and sugars to change and causes browning (think of sears on steaks and the crispy bits of roasted potatoes).  We’ll talk about he Maillard reaction in another post, promise.

For our fatty element, we’re using olive oil and parmesan cheese.  Also because I’m boujie and also because I was able to go to the Portuguese market when I visited home for Thanksgiving I’m using a super lovely Portuguese, extra virgin olive oil.  Also I’m using some super fancy parmesan cheese but I’ll get into that in a little bit because now it’s time to talk about…

Acid

Nope, not that kind of acid.  I mean acid from fruits and vinegars and tomatoes and junk.

Acid brightens up your dish and goes hand in hand with fats.  They’re bff’s.  Like peanut butter and jelly…which HAPPENS to be a fat (peanut butter) paired with an acid (jelly).  Point made, time to drop the mic.

Also acid in marinades tenderizes meats and makes them more tasty.

So the super-important acidic element of our dish is lemon juice, straight from the lemon.

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Pasta Aglio e Olio

Time to talk about one of my favorite pasta dishes.  It’s so easy to make, has just seven ingredients, and is super easy to make into a proper meal.  AND it’s got all of our flavor elements. It’s amazing.

I made it extra amazing because I used super boujie ingredients from Eataly, which is the best Italian-market style grocery store thing in the world.  And again, we also used Portuguese olive oil, which I love, love, LOVE.  I would bathe in it if it wasn’t socially frowned upon.

Anyway.

My boujie ingredients (other that the olive oil) included fresh pasta, organic lemons and parsley, and the fanciest of fancy cheeses – Parmigiano delle Vacche Rosse (also known as red cow parmesan) from Reggio, Italy.  Guys, this cheese is unreal in how delicious it is.  I read up on it after we ate and learned how amazing it is that this cheese even still exists.  Seriously!  These cows don’t produce a lot of milk to begin with, which made the cheese super expensive and almost led to the cows going into extinction.  Thank goodness that they weren’t!

I also made a salad with baby heirloom tomatoes, green and red leaf lettuce, lemon pepper chicken, parsley, cheese, and homemade dijon (dijon, olive oil, salt, pepper) dressing because just having pasta for a meal isn’t a great idea.  Look, it was so pretty!

Also, this salad contains salt, fat, and acid to make it tasty.  Salt from the…well, salt (and also cheese has salt), fat from the cheese and olive oil, and acid from the mustard and lemon on the lemon pepper (also tomatoes).

So we started the pasta making by whipping out Eat What You Watch by Andrew Rea of Binging with Babish fame (he’s amazing check him out) and having my tall friend (Dyami) helping me adjust my lighting while I took pictures of food.

Then we got a pot of lightly salted water on the stove (for the pasta) and Dyami finely sliced the garlic while I heated the olive oil in a pan over medium.  Once the olive oil was shimmering, we added the garlic and stirred that shit constantly.

The Tall One then finely chopped a bunch of parsley and cut a lemon in half for me while Whitney and I stared at our garlic and waited for the edges to brown.  It was a very tense moment.  Once the edges were browned, we threw in a teaspoon of red chili flakes, stirred until it was fragrant, and took the whole pan off the heat and waited for our pasta water to come to a boil so that we could cook our pasta.

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Once our pasta was cooked al dente, we put our oil sauce back onto heat and transferred the pasta to the sauce along with some pasta water to make it all meld together and allow the sauce to stick to that pasta.  We also threw in a bunch of parsley and tossed it up until we couldn’t take it anymore and had to eat this glorious pasta.

LOOK AT IT.

We topped our pasta with our bougie red cow parmesan which turned the great pasta in HOLY COW (pun, hehe) THIS IS AMAZING pasta.  If you ever come across this parmesan, go ahead and fork out the cash for it.  It’s so worth it.  But if you can’t or won’t buy bougie cheese, regular will be fine (imagine I said this in a slightly snarky manner like a TV chef who’s name rhymes with Shmina Shmarten).

Seriously though guys, this pasta had 7 ingredients but it tastes DELICIOUS.  And it’s so simple.  I love complex flavors and preparation and fancy food techniques and all, but they’re meaningless if you don’t have salt, fat, and acid to tie them all together.

SO.  What did we learn?

Salt, fat, and acid are the trifecta of flavor! You need all three to optimize the tastiness of your meal.

Armed with this new food knowledge, go forth and make yummy foods!

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