Zilli weekend

So let's begin with the first recipe. I cooked with my father on Thursday night and (re-)discovered The Zilli Cookbook, by Aldo Zilli. He was born in the Abruzzo region of Italy and learnt to cook from his mother. He now owns the Zilli Fish restaurant and Zilli Cafe in central London. The cookbook we used was published in 2003, is in hardback with a nice cover (see below) and well weathered. After flicking through, I loved so many of the recipes, that I borrowed/stole the book from my father to use at home.

The recipe I chose to cook last night was simple - I had some scallops from Cornwall that I had decided to defrost, and wanted to cook something that wouldn't overpower their flavour. So I chose Spaghetti with Olive Oil, Garlic and Chilli:

4 tablespoons of good olive oil

3 Garlic cloves

2 fresh red chillies, de-seeded and chopped finely

400g spaghetti

100g parmesan cheese - I used Comte, as I had a lot from a recent trip to France. This does NOT work as well as Parmesan, as it has a lighter flavour and is softer, so is stickier than Parmesan

10 fresh basil leaves, torn

2 tablespoon fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (I used a little more than this, as I love fresh parsley)

Serves 4 (this is pretty accurate, or two people plus one hungry male), preparation and cooking time c25 minutes

A pretty simple dish this one - For anyone interested, I chopped the garlic with my new Christmas present, a Joseph Joseph garlic rocker. If you don't have one, I recommend you get one - it's very effective, easy to clean and leaves you without that 48 hour garlic smell on your hands. Lovely.

I heated the olive oil in a pan on medium heat until it was hot enough to sizzle, and then sauteed the crushed garlic and chopped chillies for a couple of minutes until the garlic was soft. In parallel, I cooked the spaghetti until al dente, drained and kept a cupful of the pasta water.

When the pasta was drained,I added the oil mixture into the pasta with a splash of pasta water.The recipe suggests that you can discard the garlic from the mixture, as the flavour is already in the oil - I chose not to. I also added grated cheese and mixed in well. It was slightly sticky (due to use of Comte rather than Parmesan I expect) but tasted beautiful. I added pepper, but no need to add salt unless you want to.

The recipe suggests serving with the basil and parsley sprinkled on top - I chose to stir them in immediately before serving, which worked well. 

Finally, I briefly sauteed the scallops in some olive oil and lemon, and then served with the juice from the scallops poured over the top of them. To finish off,I squeezed a lemon over both the scallops and the pasta, which added a bit of extra bite to the pasta. 

Feedback was very positive, so it's an easy win!! However in future, I'd 1) use Parmesan or Pecorino and 2) use more garlic. Enjoy!