Fettuccine Aglio-e-olio

It was a weekday, I was already done with my dinner but then I thought about the zucchini that had been lying in my fridge for a week now, all alone and miserable and I finally decided to spend some time with it. I wanted to turn that weird thing into something that everybody loves. Pasta!

In this blog post, I will be sharing my experience with making the simplest pasta dish of all time, with a slight twist to it. I guess you must have had spaghetti Aglio-e-olio in the past at some restaurant and probably appreciated it a lot (I always did)! Ever thought of making it at home? No? Neither did I! Till one fine day when I actually went on the internet looking for healthier alternates to my favorite foods and stumbled upon this particular recipe! I read about it, had a so-so first attempt at it but then finally managed to make a tastier version and now it is one of my favorite preparations which makes up for a healthy, low carb dinner.

Ohh, in case you are still wondering about why I talked about zucchini at the very starting of this post, let me help you with that. We will be using zucchini to make the noodles for our pasta! Wait, what!? Trying to make our own pasta at home and that too using a vegetable?! Read along and give it a try. Trust me on this. The result is really awesome and you would love every bite of it without having the guilt of crossing your total calorie count for the day (if you have any! xD).

So let's start with the ingredients as usual!

1. Zucchini. Duh! You can’t make zucchini noodles without the zucchini, can you? You can take 2 zucchinis, should be enough to make one serving. Also, as an alternative, you can use cucumbers if zucchini is not readily available in your area.

2. Garlic cloves. Fettuccine Aglio-e-olio literally translates to fettuccine with garlic and oil in Italian. You would need lots of it. Take an entire garlic if you may.

3. Olives. Adding sliced black pitted olives to this makes it even better. Take around 10–12 whole olives.

4. Jalapenos. I used the canned ones, that comes pre-sliced. You can take roughly 8–10 pieces of it. Gives a nice spicy kick to the dish.

5. Cherry Tomatoes. They add in the tangy flavor to the pasta and go along very very well with garlic. Again 8–10 pieces of tomatoes should be enough. You can swap this out with normal tomatoes as well. Finely chopped though. Two medium sized tomatoes should suffice.

6. Olive oil. Try to get the extra virgin olive out because oil is what adds flavor to this dish and we will be using quite a lot of it. We would use around 2–3 tablespoons of olive oil.

7. Chilli flakes. A teaspoon full of chili flakes to add spiciness to the pasta. You can add in more or less depending on your spice tolerance, but do not skip on it. It adds in a bite to the pasta and helps to elevate the dish to a different level.

8. Mixed Herbs. Using dried mixed herbs adds a lot of Italian flavors to the pasta. Not a necessity, but rather a recommended ingredient. You can replace it with just oregano if that is more accessible to you. Take about a teaspoon or two of it depending on how strong herb flavors you like. But please do not and I repeat, DO NOT replace it with the seasoning that comes along with your pizza delivery. They have a lot more things that just the herbs and we do not want all of them to be added to our pasta!

9. Fresh Coriander. Adds in a lot of freshness that we do not get on adding our dried mixed herbs mixture. You can use lots of it.

10. Salt and Pepper.

That would be all. Lemme list out the equipment that you would need to win this battle!

1. Vegetable Peeler. This is like the most important thing for this entire dish, possibly even more important than zucchini itself and has no substitute. Try and get your hands on a peeler that we would use to create fettuccine noodles out of our zucchini.
2. Chopping board. I don’t think I need to tell you why we need it!
3. Your knives. If you have one of those big-ass chef knives — brilliant! They would help you chop things very finely with ease.
4. A clean cloth. We would need that to strain off excess water from our noodles.
5. Bowls
6. Non-stick pan
7. Wooden Kitchen Tongs. To mix your noodles with all the other stuff without manhandling it and breaking it into pieces.
8. Wooden spatula.

Time for a tip? This might seem very stupid but helps prevent a lot of accidents while chopping. Always make sure that your chopping board is dry before you begin using it especially at the bottom. This prevents it from moving on your kitchen counter while you are chopping, hence reducing the risk of getting your one of your fingers separated from your hand!

Enough of collecting items, its time to start with the prep. Prepping up your veggies before starting to cook actually helps you prevent things from overcooking and makes you stay away from panic attacks while making the dish.

Needless to say, you are supposed to wash up all the vegetables very thoroughly before getting started with anything.

1. Firstly, let's start with the star of this dish. Zucchini! Use the peeler to get off the skin and throw it away. We wouldn’t need it. Chop off its tail and stabilize it on your chopping board to help it stand vertically. Now, this is an important step. Use the peeler to start making noodles from the zucchini. Go slow, you would want to get thin and broad noodles. Take your time with this step. Go all the way till you find seeds and cover all the sides. You do not want to use the seeds.
2. Once you have the noodles peeled off, put them on a cloth inside a bowl and add in a generous amount of salt to it. We want to remove all the excess water off the noodles so that the resulting pasta is not watery. Let it rest for like 20 minutes or so while you work on rest of the stuff.
   I made the mistake of skipping this step in my first go, and it makes everything go downhill.
3. Next, chop off your cherry tomatoes into half. This is easy.
4. Start with the garlic and mince it down to small pieces. This is where we make use of a big-ass chef’s knife, making our life easier.
5. Slice your whole olives into slices and jalapenos into smaller pieces
6. Last, take the coriander leaves and chop them as finely as you can. Finer the better. Make sure that they are dried off before you start chopping them, else they just create a huge mess on the board and you end up losing a lot of flavors dripping out with water onto the board.

7. After you are done with all of this, strain off all the excess water from your noodles and make them dry. You would have to squeeze them a lot because zucchini is very high in water content and we want the noodles to be as dry as possible.

8. Once the water is removed, add in a little olive oil to the noodles and mix it up well. Try to separate out the noodles from each other and prevent them from sticking.

Tip: Keep your chopping board clean while working. Always clean it up when you move to prepare the next ingredient. This prevents mixing up of skins from the useful part of any vegetable. It also helps you stay organized.

Preparations done! Its cooking time nowwww!

1. In your non-stick pan, add in the olive oil and garlic and put it on low heat. Okay, so this is something very contradictory to how we usually work with oil and garlic. We usually heat up our pan first, add in the olive oil, let it heat up and then add in the garlic to get it roasted. There must be a good reason to add in the oil and garlic first. This is the heart and soul of our “Fettuccine Aglio-e-olio”.
   When we add in the garlic first to the oil and then heat it up, the oil gets enough time to absorb the garlic flavor which is very important for this. We want to roast the garlic very slowly till it turns light golden-brown. Let this happen on the low flame, probably the lowest or the second-lowest setting on your stove.
2. Once the garlic is almost golden-brown, add in the chili flakes and let them get roasted as well. Chili flakes are going to give the spicy kick to this dish. We don’t want to roast them for a long while as chili flakes start to get bitter with time. Let them roast for like 20 seconds.
3. Add in the cherry tomatoes to the pan. Roast ’em till they are about to blister. Keep stirring the mixture in the pan using your spatula. You can also try tossing the contents in the pan instead of stirring. Looks cooler and honestly, I love it whenever I get it just right. Keep stirring or tossing at regular intervals
4. Add in the olive slices and jalapenos to the mixture and again stir/toss for a little while.
5. Add in some black pepper and a generous amount of mixed herbs as well as freshly chopped coriander. Stir well.
6. It’s time to add in the zucchini noodles to the pan and do away with your spatula. Get your hands on the wooden tongs to mix up the noodles with all the other ingredients. Make sure you coat them well in the pan.
7. Our pasta is ready! Get your pan off the heat and serve it in a plate gently.

Fettuccine Aglio-e-olio

Have it as your dinner or make it a side dish with your main course. Either of them works fine. The dish is simple and yet so sophisticated. It's healthy (especially keto friendly) and yet so delicious. Give it a try in your kitchen and let me know how it goes.

Feedback and questions are most welcome.

Thanks for reading!
#StopLookinStartCookin!

-Rachit

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