Spaghetti Pangrattato w/ Crispy Eggs

By CheeseDiva

Ingredients

• Crumbs
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup fresh or stale coarse plain breadcrumbs (panko worked great here)
• Salt and red pepper flakes, to taste
• 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, minced
• Few fine gratings fresh lemon zest
• Crispy Egg
• 1 glug of olive oil per egg
• 3 eggs
• Salt and pepper
• Pasta and Assembly
• 8 ounces dried spaghetti
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons small capers, drained (rinsed if salted), chopped
• Handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/3 cup grated Pecor

Details

Servings 2
Adapted from smittenkitchen.com

Preparation

Step 1

Make crispy crumbs (pangrattato):

Heat olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add garlic and let sizzle for barely a minute, just until it begins to turn a pale golden color. Add breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, rosemary and lemon zest and reduce heat to low, cooking mixture slowly until all of the crumbs are an even golden color, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of well salted water to a generous boil and cook pasta until

about 1 to 2 minutes shy of package directions. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta cooking water before draining pasta.

Meanwhile, make crispy eggs:

Wipe out breadcrumbs skillet. Return to stove over high heat and add a generous glug of olive oil per egg. Once hot enough that the oil begins to smoke, add egg(s). They’re going to hiss and splatter so step back as soon as you do. Spoon some of the cooking oil over the eggs, carefully. Season with salt and pepper. In 1 to 2 minutes, the egg(s) will be brown and very crisp underneath and around the edges. Shimmy a thin spatula underneath the egg(s) (a flexible fish spatula works great here), being careful not to break the yolk. If you’re cooking for someone who shouldn’t be eating runny yolks (ahem), you can flip the egg over and cook it for another 30 seconds or so before removing it. Transfer cooked egg(s) to paper towels to drain.

Once pasta is drained, return it to the empty pot or a large skillet with 1 tablespoon olive oil and a splash or two (or all, if needed to loosen pasta) of reserved cooking water. Over high heat, toss with capers and parsley for 1 minute. Divide among bowls or plates. Sprinkle with Pecorino, if using, then 1/3 of breadcrumb (pangrattato) mixture. Place an egg over each dish, and break up with a fork. Eat immediately.

Molly — I mention in the recipe that I flipped mine for a moment so it was 90% solid. With the fried egg salad, one does the same; the directions are to cook the eggs on the second side “until the yolks are set but still slightly molten” which pretty much makes me hungry every time I read it, and is the ideal compromise between runny (“danger!”) and hard/dry yolks.

This is great stuff! I do a crispy egg white since I don’t care for yolks, and it is still wonderful! Do not skip the lemon zest! Seems a small thing, but really makes this stand out!

Quite honestly I have never seen anything quite like this. I love my sunny up eggs in the morning and my spaghetti for lunch but never even thought they could be combined. I tend to be a picky eater but seeing your pictures has erased all my fears. Now I can get my eggs for lunch or dinner. DELICIOUS!

I am very sure your research was not in vain deb, it is always nice to find out were food comes form before you eat it. Makes for a more satisfying meal in my books. I am simply in love with all your crispy fried egg recipes: I want to try them all! There is always good reason to fry an egg :)

Mmmm!! This is too delicious!! I need to make this at home tomorrow!

Oh, the crispy egg! How I love it for turning almost anything I can scrounge from my fridge into a respectable meal. Glad you had such a lovely trip. My husband did the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, and we visited Punta Cana. Still one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen.

It’s creepy how many times this blog features either what I’m sorely craving, or, a recent meal that I have made. In this case, it’s the latter. Too many years ago, in the early 80’s a good friend of the family who was a super foodie (and not even Italian), asked me and my mother to stay for dinner on a night when his wife was sick and we had gone to visit. He hadn’t planned on dinner guests so he just “whipped” up some pasta. Yep, it was the pangritata. It had fried crumbs of French bread with parsley, garlic, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, parmesan, and capers. It was so simple and yet so memorable, that over the years I have made variations on it. I never forgot it. Last week, I got to remembering again how yummy this is and made it again. And now this post. Sometimes I add bits of pancetta, or bacon. The egg is a new take and I can’t believe I haven’t done that. Next time!

What a delight to see my recipe on your site! The version of “spaghetti with breadcrumbs” I make is a riff on an Arthur Schwartz recipe, combined with a recipe from Jamie Oliver and a few of my own tweaks. I’ve read the comments here and on Instagram regarding the proper Italian for “grated bread” – I would throw J.O. under the bus for the mistake except he’s too nice and I should have done my research – so I offer my apologies instead. Thanks for giving my recipe a try and wishing you a happy, healthy, easy baby!

Pangritata, pangrattato — Now fixed! I realized the error on my way to my lunchtime swim and cringed through all of my laps. (I’m kind of neurotic about editorial errors, you know, for someone who makes them as often as I do.) Thanks for the heads up, and also for clearing up my confusion as to why I couldn’t find more references to it in books and websites.

Caper substitutes — Olives, anchovies and other salt/briny things are usually what would be suggested, but you can also skip it. The purpose is to add that salty/briny flavor and if you don’t care for it, no reason to add it here. This style of breadcrumbs is very flexible and even with half the ingredients, you’d still get the idea of it (albeit with a less complex flavor).

Millie | Add A Little

As another pregnant mother of a second, I will agree that I am more laid back this pregnancy than the first. The statement “still slightly molten” about egg yolks nearly has me a) running to the kitchen (except that I would wake up a toddler) and b) crying my gratitude from the rooftop. This has been added to my weekly meal plan — probably with a bit of hard salami and salad to round it out.

This is a godsend for a student facing end-of-the-month food blues. Ever thankful for make a cheapy dish sound like something you’d eat in The Savoy!

Wow! this looks amazing. I just indulged in a very nutritious, McDonalds fry. I decided to change my life and look up food blogs. I loved your stories and thought that it was very funny you decided not to have kids because your bad timing in a vacation! I know what that is like. I as well love the taste of the “Crispy egg” and try to use it in many of the recipes that I like to cook. The vacation you took sounds like so much fun and will have to try a place like that with my family as it seems that one of us is always bored, happy cooking!

I should probably know this from all the crispy egg recipes, but do you recommend cracking the eggs into a bowl/ramekin first and adding that to the pan or just crack right into the hot oil? One at a time or all three at once (if bowl)? Thanks!

This is fabulous Deb, and exactly what I needed this morning. I was having a very lazy Monday and woke up to see this fabulous post. I made it for dinner tonight, with the addition of a chicken breast, and it did just the trick. Delicious and thank you for sharing!

I’ll have to make my own pasta with kale and spinach and add some bacon but this looks fine as is without any alterations. Who has time to make good pasta. Another stupid comment, right?