I’m just in love with the simplest food right now.

I had the most delicious grilled salmon yesterday at a Thai restaurant that I’ll be recreating at home. It was served just with al dente asparagus and a red curry sauce that you actually wanted MORE of (and not less as is so often the case).

I’m going to be trying that one at home very soon.

Last year I also recreated a sauce similar to the one they serve with their delicious grilled squid - again, another dish defined by both simplicity and flavour.

I’m reminded while cooking right now of Coco Chanel’s edict to ‘take one thing off’ before leaving the house.

It’s so tempting to add more (and more). And more.

We all do it.

And unless that is absolutely your style thing - and I’ve definitely seen and admired those who DO pull it off - most of us would benefit from a little paring down.

In our style, our look, in how we spend our time, in our food. In everything.

This recipe could not be more simple.

Yet could also not be more elegant - not just elegant in a cold way but elegant and also very sexy.

Very sensual.

It has to be when it’s just four ingredients, four perfect ingredients, cooked together to create a perfectly simple, elegant, luscious, sensual dish.

The recipe is from a very good book, Made At Home, by the wonderful Giorgio Locatelli.

He talks a little about the dish before sharing the recipe.

He also talks about ‘the sexiest scene’ in a film called Chef (that I am definitely watching as soon as I’ve posted this).

He talks about how in the film the Jon Favreau character cooks this dish for the Scarlett Johansson character and he says,

‘…. winding it round a big toasting fork and handing it to her in a little bowl, then watching her as she is totally seduced by the flavours. it is a moment of genius. The way she watches him making the spaghetti and then he watches her eat it … ‘

Such sensuality from the making and giving and receiving of the most beautiful, simplest food.

Can we ask for more from food, from anything really?

So go on then …. let’s make this.

The recipe is pretty much exactly from Giorgio Locatelli but the words here are mine.

Just four ingredients and a very different way of cooking to my usual way.

I’m usually stir frying things quickly over a high heat.

I need to use an oil with a high cooking temperature - like rapeseed or grapeseed. I need to hear things sizzle and to move them around quickly.

Not this langourous dish.

It takes its time. Well, it does just here at the start when we’re cooking that garlic to infuse the big fruity oil with the big garlic flavour before we heat them both together to form the base of the sauce.

So those four ingredients include the oil - it needs to be a virgin or extra virgin olive oil.

Usually I’d say these oils are for dressings as they cook and burn at a relatively low temperature.

But here we want that gorgeous rich fruity flavour.

And we want garlic, lots of it.

And chilli, lots of it. Scotch bonnet would be amazing and what’s recommended in the recipe - as it’s so fruity and delicious but I didn’t have any and so used bird eye.

You could also use dried chilli flakes which I have done since and have to admit I kind of prefer it - I use just about 1/2 a teaspoon as mine are really spicy!

So that’s three.

Olive oil
Garlic
Chillies

The fourth is the pasta itself.

Get a big pan on the heat with lots of water and a little salt - give it lots of room to breathe.

When boiling add the spaghetti and cook for ten minutes for it to be that perfect bite between al dente and soft (well, that’s what’s perfect for me).

While it’s cooking put a big non-stick pan over a low heat and add a tablespoon of the oil.

Tip in the garlic, stir for a few seconds, pull the pan away from the heat, stir and add a little more cold oil.

Return to the heat, stir into the warmth.

Just before it sizzles or starts to colour, pull the pan off the heat, stir, cool it down slightly.

Return to heat, stir and allow the oil to start to gently sizzle and the garlic to just just just just just turn colour.

Then add the chilli and cook, stirring, quickly and briefly.

Pull the pan away from the heat and add a ladleful of the pasta cooking water straight from that boiling pan to this - watch out because it might spit.

Return to the heat, turn the heat to the lowest setting and stir - keep it just there on the boil until the spaghetti has finished cooking.

Retain another ladle of the cooking water in case you need it, and drain the pasta then tip into the pan with the oil, garlic and chilli and toss thoroughly so it’s all coated.

Add a little more of the cooking water if needed.

And that is it. That simple.

You could add some lovely fresh parsley and grate in fresh parmesan - both of which would be absolutely delicious - but I had neither of these today so just had the very simplest way of eating this.

And I loved every silky full-flavoured mouthful of it.