YJL

I learned a recipe which basically only needs spaghetti, garlic, and olive oil (+ cheese) to make a pasta dish a few months ago. Since then, I have made it once a while because it's very simple and quick, you virtually only need to wait for spaghetti to cook and you are about to eat.

At first try, I only had garlic fried in the olive oil to release its flavor. You slice a few garlic cloves and fry them in medium-low heat or hot enough but won't burn them. Once they begin to turn brown, that's done.

The second time, I added fresh red chili, I like some heat in my food. This time, I put in some scallions and dry red chili:



I think you can pretty much infuse the oil with any flavors you like to taste with your spaghetti. The dry chili seems to have much stronger heat than the fresh ones. I think onion may also be a good option to flavor the oil.

The best of this dish is you can prepare this oil while you are cooking pasta. When pasta is done, the oil already is waiting, so is your stomach.

This photo was taken from the second time I had this dish You can make more oil than one meal you need, it will stay good for very long time. I like cooking spaghetti in wide pan, you don't need much water than cooking in a pot, also you can use it to mix sauce with the residual heat. Most of all, you only need to wash one pan.



Add some vegetables, especially greens, or other you like, such as mushroom. Everything is cooked in just one pan, it can't get easier than that.

After draining the water, pour back to the pan and add enough flavored oil, one spoonful at a time, mix well until the pasta all coated and glistening. If you use a bowl to eat—for instance, you are hungry like a bear, you use a large bowl for a pack of spaghetti—then you can just mix pasta and oil in a bowl, you won't need to wash a super oily pan.



If you are not a vegan, then cheese shall be added as common ingredient. Most of pasta recipes, cheese is essential, so is it in this recipe. But it's totally find without any cheese, at least, fine with me.

It is very easy to cook, well not sure that really counts as cooking. Fifteen minutes to twenty minutes are all you need, and most of cooking time, you are waiting. No salt is added other than in the pasta cooking water, that's only the source of sodium. By my definition, this is a relatively healthy dish if you ignore the amount of oil and the lack of ingredients, though I don't care much about eating healthily.

You can also add some black pepper, but I found that the flavor is already amazing, even with only garlic-infused olive oil. Garlic definitely is one of my favorite ingredients.

Two made from other times: