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My way, refined over about 10 years.

Feeds: 2 for a slap up lunch

Needs: one tin of chopped Italian tomatoes, one tin of anchovy fillets, a handful of dry black olives, one medium onion, 3-4 cloves of garlic, a few fresh basil leaves, small handful of salted capers washed and dried, 2-3 dried red chillis, one lemon, good quality olive oil, salt and pepper and about 200g of good quality Spaghetti and some fresh Parmesan to serve.

Deeds: Get a big pan of salted water on a rolling boil ready for the Spahetti, but don’t put that in yet. Put a good healthy slug of olive oil in a warming frying pan. Drain the anchovy oil into this as well and add the dried chillis. Let the warming oil infuse with the chilli for a few mins until the chillis turn brown, then discard. Meanwhile, press the stones out of your olives, finely chop your onion, chop the anchovy fillets, slice the garlic into strips and chumble up your capers a bit.

Once you’ve discarded the chillis from the oil, add the onions and allow them to soften. Once translucent, add the anchovy fillets and stir them around until they begin to ‘melt’. Add the crushed olives and capers and tomatoes. Give it a good stir and leave on a gentle heat to infuse.

Now get your pasta on, noting the cooking time. Set a timer for a minute less than the packet suggests. Tear up and throw in the basil leaves to the sauce, and just as the pasta’s ready (here’s the **magic bit**) grate the zest of your lemon into the sauce. No juice, just the zest. Trust me it’s the killer addition. Taste and adjust seasoning - it usually just needs some pepper as the anchovies are salty enough.

Drain the pasta and combine in the pan, before serving into deep bowls with Parmesan to taste and enjoy straight away. Best eaten on a sofa with a glass of good white wine and 80’s movie to hand, something with Bill Murray in preferably. Then a Scooby snooze.