Often when my husband is out for the evening, I make myself some kind of simple pasta dish, usually relying on things we already have on hand. I’ve done Deb’s Simplest Spaghetti al Limone and her Foolproof Cacio e Pepe, but I wanted to try a new one. The Spaghetti Pangrattato with Crispy Eggs from Smitten Kitchen Every Day looked delicious and I had everything except the spaghetti. I used bucatini, despite Deb’s low opinion of it.

Pangrattato is an Italian topping that is essentially bread crumbs sautéed in olive oil with whatever herbs and seasonings sound good to you. Having had another pangrattato via Bon Appétit’s Winter Squash and Kale Pasta with Pecan Breadcrumbs I knew it would be delightful. (And yes, you should make that Bon App recipe, but don’t use noodles, use a rigatoni or something else you can more easily stab onto a fork next to a chunk of squash.)

This is pretty simple. While the water came up to a boil I made the pangrattato, using panko for extra crunch, and omitting the lemon zest because all our lemons had seen better days. I did eventually nudge the heat on the pangrattato up a notch because it’d been going for probably three minutes and I didn’t see any change in color. Once I turned up to medium low, it finished up pretty quickly. At that point the pasta went into the pot and I started on the egg.

I was a little nervous about the crispy egg but I’ve read about making these and watched videos so I decided to just trust the process. (Here’s two minutes of Kenji López-Alt being extremely opinionated about fried eggs while demonstrating the technique.)

I let the oil get just to where I saw it shimmering, got it mostly onto one side of the pan, and cracked the egg in. (In retrospect I should have cracked the egg into a little bowl and then poured it into the oil. I didn’t get any shell into it but there is no way you’re fishing that out when you’re making a crispy egg.) The egg puffed up pretty quickly and started browning at the edges almost right away. I spooned some oil over a few times and tried to keep an eye on the bottom. When it looked good to me I took it out and I actually just let it sit on a clean spot on the cutting board. I did have a hard time getting the egg out — it kept flipping over — but we got there.

I realized too late that I didn’t save any pasta water, so I combined the oil you use to finish the pasta with a little splash of white vermouth. I also tossed in some of the pangrattato to get a bit of it incorporated into the dish. And yes I did add parmesean to the pangrattato.

This was a very tasty and simple meal. I liked the addition of the egg and enjoyed how savory and crunchy it was.