This beautiful dish is amazingly simple and incredibly delicious. I often feel a bit too lazy and/or hungry for any type of elaborate cooking when I come home from work during the weekdays, but this dish is so quick to make and requires few ingredients so there’s really no good reason not to have excellent food nonetheless. 😃

Sanni

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 400 grams of fresh or 200 grams of dried fettuccine
• sea salt
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, whole
• 1/4 of a chili, seeds and membrane removed, chopped
• 100-120 grams of butter
• generous squeeze of lemon
• freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• zest of 1 lemon
• 40 grams of grated Pecorino Romano

Preparation:

1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, add sea salt and the pasta and boil until al dente according to instruction.
2. In the meantime, heat up the olive oil in a large pan over low to medium heat and fry the garlic from all sides for 1 minute. Remove and discard.
3. Add the chili around 30 seconds before the pasta is done, then add the pasta when done together with several spoons of the pasta water.
4. Immediately add 100 grams of the butter, the lemon juice and toss. You are looking for a creamy, not too saucy but not too dry consistency; add more pasta water and/or butter if required.
5. Season with pepper and some more sea salt, add the chopped parsley (set aside 1-2 teaspoons for serving), half of the lemon zest and 30 grams grams of the pecorino. Toss again and add more pasta water and/or butter if required (as in the previous step).
6. Serve immediately on pre-warmed pasta dishes sprinkled with the remaining parsley, lemon zest and pecorino.