Pasta with olive oil: the simplest sauce there is

Pasta with olive oil and garlic is what you make when there is nothing in the house. It is also one of the least forgiving dishes, because with four ingredients there is nowhere to hide a mistake.

The method

1. 1.Boil the pasta in properly salted water
2. 2.Meanwhile warm olive oil in a wide pan over low heat
3. 3.Add thinly sliced garlic. Cook it slowly until pale gold, not brown
4. 4.Save a cup of the pasta water before draining
5. 5.Move the pasta straight into the pan with a splash of that water
6. 6.Toss hard until the sauce thickens and clings to the pasta
7. 7.Take it off the heat and pour raw olive oil over

Why the pasta water

The water pasta cooked in carries starch released from the pasta itself. That starch lets oil and water come together into a thick, creamy sauce, and without it the oil simply slides off and pools at the bottom of the plate.

This is also why the vigorous tossing matters. You are making an emulsion, not simply mixing oil with pasta.

The mistake that ruins this dish

Burning the garlic. Thinly sliced garlic goes from gold to brown to bitter in the space of seconds, and once it is bitter the whole dish is bitter.

Use lower heat than you think you need, and lift the pan off if it moves too fast. The garlic should take a few minutes, not thirty seconds.

Additions worth making

• Crushed dried chilli, added with the garlic
• Chopped fresh parsley, stirred in at the end
• Grated cheese, tossed in with the pasta water
• Grated lemon zest, added once the heat is off
• Breadcrumbs fried in olive oil, scattered over the top

Which oil to use

In this dish, olive oil is not a cooking medium — it is the sauce. The flavour you get is the oil's flavour. Use a recently opened bottle, and not a "pure" or "light" grade, because flavour is exactly what refining removes.