Spaghetti Al Limone

Saw this dish on David Rocco’s Dolce Vita on Discovery Travel & Living channel. It sounded like a simple enough, yet interesting dish and does not require much cooking, except for the cooking of the spaghetti. Best suited for lazy people like me. Ha. And at least healthier than instant noodles.

So I decided to give it a try tonight since it was my free day, which means an after-work-no-tuition day.

As there was still half a packet of linguine left over from Sunday, I used it instead of spaghetti as stated by the recipe. Everything was going well until I tasted the final result. It turned out that I had cooked a bit too little linguine, and the juice of half a lemon was too much. It became damn sour. So, I cooked another handful of linguine. I completed it in about 20 minutes or so. The taste was something completely different from the normal tomato or white sauced pastas. A bit tangy sour, with the slight saltiness from the cheese.

However, I haven't mastered the skill of telling whether the pasta had been cooked al dente or not. Seems like 8 to 10 minutes, as stated by most recipes, is not enough. The linguine felt cooked on the outside but was still a little too hard on the inside. Or maybe different pastas have different time for them to turn al dente? Guess got to do a research on that. Or are there any experts to advise me on that?

Spaghetti Al Limone (from : David Rocco)

4 servings

Ingredients:

- 1 lb spaghetti (457g)

- 1 garlic clove, for rubbing

- lemon juice from 2 lemons, freshly squeezed

- 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (74ml)

- salt to season

- 1 cup parmigiano cheese, finely grated (235ml), plus extra for sprinkling

- a bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

- the zest of 1 lemon, freshly grated

Directions:

1. Place spaghetti in a pot of boiling salted water and stir immediately to prevent from sticking.

2. Cut garlic in half and rub exposed area along the interior of a large serving bowl. This way the flavour of raw garlic will cover the inside surface of the bowl. Discard the garlic.

3. Add freshly squeezed lemon juice and slowly drizzle in extra virgin olive oil while stirring. Stir well until the ingredients have emulsified.

4. Mix in salt and parmigiano cheese.

5. When the spaghetti is al dente­, drain and add to the serving bowl. Mix well.

6. Sprinkle with parmigiano cheese, parsley and lemon zest. Serve immediately.