Roberto’s spaghetti with vongole
At FavorFlav, we love picking the meat out of the vongole, twirling it around a large strand of spaghetti with olive oil and plenty of garlic. There’s something almost meditative about it.
Put the oil, the garlic and the chili peppers in a large frying pan. Heat over medium heat until the garlic starts to color.
Rinsing
Add the white wine so that the garlic does not brown any further.Rinse the vongole thoroughly under cold running water and discard any shells that are broken. Add them to the garlic and wine mixture, season generously with pepper and cook over high heat until all the shells have opened. Discard any that have not opened.
Al dente
Do not cook the spaghetti completely ‘al dente’; instead, cook it for 4 minutes less than the cooking time indicated on the package. Remove the pasta from the water and let it finish cooking in the liquid the vongole have left in the frying pan.Mix the vongole through the pasta and garnish with parsley.
At Roberto’s, we love to ‘mantecare’ the spaghetti—that is, to create a creamy mixture with the liquid from the vongole, the olive oil and the starch released from the pasta.Some Italians enjoy this ‘soupy’ spaghetti because it is still a little moist, allowing you to dip your bread into the liquid. Others prefer ‘greasy’ spaghetti without any liquid.
Source: Pure Italian Cuisine, Roberto Payer € 39.95, Terra
