angel hair pasta

Capelli di angelo Alfonso. Alfredo's brother. See? It's not fettucini Alfredo because the pasta is not fettucini. This looks like a giant plate of spaghetti but it is not. It looks that way because the strands are very thin like hair, capelli. It is actually a very small plate and a very small pile. 

All of the flavorings are on the surface of the pasta except one, nutmeg, which is grated over heated cream. That is all there is to the sauce, gently heated heavy cream, about 1/4 cup or possibly less. 

Coriander seeds, cumin seeds, whole black peppercorns, mixed chile flakes with sea salt are heated in a tiny pot then ground to coarse powder in a coffee grinder. Parmigiano Reggiano is grated separately then mixed with the ground seeds. 

As the diner consumes this pasta, removing strands with a fork, dragging the strands through the heated cream, twirling the lifted strands in a spoon, the cream adheres to pasta, the flavor particles fall into the cream flavoring the cream increasingly as one proceeds. This is a wonderful meal. Very simple and elegant. It is much quicker to cook than it is to photograph, hardly any cooking involved, actually. 

Not pictured: hotdog buns from yesterday refreshed in the countertop convection oven, its crust restored to crispy delicacy, its interior crumb gently heated. 

It's a bit of a trick to cook angel hair pasta to al dente because there is hardly any thickness to work with. The window of opportunity appears for mere seconds so it is imperative that the cook stand there and taste-test, texture-test, tensile-test continuously. 

Remove from the cooking water immediately and douse with cold water to halt the process. This is the single instance I can think of off hand where I recommend rinsing cooked pasta with water. Usually it is desirable to retain the starchy surface of the pasta along with some of the cooking water so that it can assist with the formation and the adherence of the sauce, but not now with the thin angel hair pasta where halting the cooking process is critical. It will tend to dry and clump anyway and that is disastrous for such delicate threads. Clumpage if it happens is loosened with olive oil. This here is what you call pasta management.