Sicilian Rings with a Moorish Medley

Good pasta's simple: drop it in the pot and wait ten minutes. Unless you lose yourself in the Archers or overdose on heroin (or both), dinner's ready.

That simplicity explains why so many of us thrive on the Italian staple. But it's also the texture. And texture's something you lose if you go cheap.

Too many people think pasta is a mere commodity, where low price is the only distinction. They're wrong. And as a rule of thumb, if it cooks in less than ten minutes, then it's probably pants. Joyless, gloopy pants.

No middle class Londoner lives more than ten minutes from an Italian deli. My favourite one is Gallo Nero, on Newington Green Road. It's actually a fifteen minutes walk, but when I think about its owner I start skipping like a schoolgirl.

Clock him down the pub and he's just another skinny bloke with a big nose. Meet him in the deli, and his sensual Italian makes even this butch bastard swoon. His banter flows in great muddy torrents of Cockney, but his blood trickles tricolata.

They stock good pasta. I won't be a snob about it – Sainsbury's Spaghetti a la Chitarra is fine stuff – but Italian delis, with Italian brands, have an edge. I picked up two bags on my last visit – Casareccia Molisana and Anelli Siciliani:

• The casareccia I deployed in a propaganda counter-offensive against George Bush Sr. More on that later.
  
• The anelli ('rings') I sacrificed to a dubious voyage through Sicily's culinary history.

In short, I prepared a sauce that contained virtually every ingredient introduced by the Moors to that benighted isle:

Ingredients:

(Serves 2)

250g of Sicilian Anelli - or any other pasta that works for you here.

Red chilli, finely chopped

Garlic bulb, brutally bludgeoned

Olive oil

Handful of chickpeas

Ten raisins, chopped.

Nip of saffron

Sprinkle of pine nuts

As many fennel fronds as you can pick off the fennel bulb

Lemon

Hard Italian cheese (optional)

1. Turn on the Archers. Get some pasta. Boil some water and whack it in.

   I like these rings for this recipe, simply because they're a good fit with the chickpeas in the sauce. Shape really does matter – I surely don't need to tell you that bolognaise doesn't work with spaghetti. Or that it's not even called bolognaise.

   If you don't know why all that is wrong, I'll let Nigel break it to you gently.

   Right – you've a nice ten minute window to get the sauce ready...

2. Crumble a pinch of saffron into a thimble-sized cup. Infuse it with no more than two tablespoons of boiling water.

3. Before the oil is in the pan, get the heat on and wait for a slight heat to build. Toss the pine nuts in and rattle them around in the dry heat till they have the golden, good natured glow of all Italians. Heat off.

4. Now brutally bludgeon the garlic into a paste using the back of a knife, a wooden board and the bitter memory of some public humiliation that's been eating away at your soul.

   Chop a red chilli into small specks – only you know how much you can handle, but I'll bet it's not as much as this maniac.

   Scrape that shit into some olive oil and turn the heat on real low. We're not frying, we're coaxing out flavour.

5. Fling in some chickpeas. Just a fistful – if your pasta's any good, there's no need to swamp it with sauce. Get those chickpeas rolling around the pan to pick up the flavour.

6. Chuck in the chopped raisins. This is a crucial step if you want the sweet, sour and spicy effect that's so rare in European cookery.

   I didn't have any raisins to hand, so raided my muesli and just tried to avoid the oats.
   

7. PASTA DONE!

   Drain it and toss the pasta into the pan with the Moorish medley. Salt and pepper to taste. Now pour the saffron water on top. We're not done yet, so hold on.

8. Chop up the fennel fronds and throw them in the mix. Stir them about because their feathery strands do tend to flock together.

   If you've no fennel, parsley will do. Coriander or basil? Maybe, but not in my name.

9. The pasta should now be steeped in the saffron dye. Two minutes cooking in the pan really makes a difference here. Heat off.

   Lemon juice. I sometimes get too gung-ho at this point and end up squirting some pips in the mix, prompting a frenzied rescue mission.

   If you want this dish a little richer, grate in some hard Italian cheese now and stir it about.

10. Pasta into a bowl. Get the toasted pine nuts. Toss them onto the pasta. Maybe put a stray fennel frond onto its very peak.

    Swirl of virgin olive oil, a few crystals of Maldon sea salt and we're done here.

11. Eat, ideally with a chilled glass of Sicilian Grillo. Personally I washed it down with a murky glass of council pop.