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1
Bring a large pot of water to a full rolling boil. Salt it heavily — it should taste of the sea. Add the penne rigate and cook until just short of al dente, reserving 100 ml of the starchy cooking water before draining. The pasta will finish in the sauce: it must still have resistance when it leaves the water.
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2
While the pasta cooks, warm the olive oil in a wide pan over a medium flame. Add the sliced garlic and the whole dried peperoncini. This is where the dish lives or dies: the garlic must turn pale gold and fragrant — caramelised, not brown — and the chilli must have time to release its heat slowly into the oil. If the garlic colours too fast, the oil turns bitter and the sauce cannot be corrected. The kitchen will smell of warm, faintly smoky chilli; that is the signal.
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3
Add the hand-crushed San Marzano tomatoes to the pan. They will spit immediately. Stir, reduce the heat to a lively simmer, and cook for exactly 15 minutes. No longer: the brightness of the chilli dulls beyond this point. The sauce should tighten and deepen in colour, pulling away slightly from the edges of the pan. It should coat a spoon, not pool beneath it.
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4
Transfer the drained penne directly into the sauce. Add a splash of the reserved pasta water and toss over the heat for 1–2 minutes until each tube is dressed and the sauce clings to the ridges rather than sitting at the bottom of the pan. The surface of the pasta should appear glossy, not wet.
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5
Remove from the heat. Scatter the roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley over the pan. Taste for salt. Serve immediately in warmed bowls — arrabbiata is made and eaten within 20 minutes, and it does not hold.