Roasted garlic is a beautiful thing and this roasted garlic pasta recipe looks the part too!
Let’s face it pasta is so popular because it is awesome, it just lends itself to simple cooking. This simple spaghetti recipe is just that, simple and elegant but with a bucket load of flavour.
Roasted Garlic, Seared Tomato and Wilted Spinach Pasta.
The vast majority of the 45 minutes it takes to make this recipe are spent sipping a glass of wine whilst waiting for the garlic to roast.
You can, of course, do this in advance and warm it in the pan later.
I like to keep this recipe clean and simple in flavour terms, but you could add red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese if you were so inclined.
If you wanted to put a darker spin on this recipe you could most definitely use squid ink spaghetti.
If you have never heard of that then hunt some down, check out this squid ink spaghetti with shrimp or
this spaghetti with pepperoni and peas.
How To Roast Garlic.
If you have not tried roasted garlic you are in for a real treat!
Yes, there is a whole head of garlic in this pasta dish for two.
It is very easy, cut the top of the bulb off and add a good glug of oil. Then season wrap in foil and chuck it in the oven, seriously it is that easy.
Then allow it to cool a little remove from the foil before squeezing out that precious garlic puree!
The process of roasting removes all of the fiery elements of garlic.
Leaving behind the most beautiful, mellow flavour that will have you wanting to roast garlic more often.
Now that is not to say that it destroys the essence of garlic, it is all still there. You will most definitely not be worried about vampires for a couple of days.
However, you will not get that hardcore dropkick to the face that quickly sauteed garlic tends to veer towards.
Do it! Even if it is just to spread on toast. My wife loves garlic and she does this all of the time!
How to Plate Spaghetti.
The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that I am working on a new presentation technique for spaghetti. Pasta recipes are notoriously difficult to make look purdy on a plate and I love making food for my wife that both looks and tastes good!
This presentation technique is one I love, I’ve been working on it a while but it got it’s first outing a while back in my goats cheese and pea spaghetti recipe.
What’s the secret?
Well, simply a carving fork. The sort of thing with two prongs that you use to secure a joint of meat as you carve it.
Then treat is as you would a normal fork and spoon approach to eating spaghetti, drop that carving fork in and spin.
Then use a large serving spoon at the base to get a nice shape then go back in until you have a nice portion.
It works just as well with bucatini as you can see in this classic Bucatini all’Amatriciana recipe or this Bucatini pasta with duck ragu recipe.
You can also pile the pasta tall on the plate to create a “pyramid” as in my pasta with Putanesca sauce.