Chilli Pasta

Serves any number of surprise guests you can think of

100g pasta shapes per person
Black or green olives (or other stuff, see below)
Garlic
Chilis
Olive oil
Salad leaves
Olive oil, wine vinegar for salad dressing (and mustard powder if you have it or mixed herbs)

Cook pasta.

For the pasta sauce:

Warm some olive oil in a pan – tablespoon per person maybe. The quality of this is not important – I usually use Sainsburys own for this bit. Add some crushed garlic and chopped chilis – as much as you want, thinking how much each person gets, and depending on how strong the chilis are. Allow them to soften a little.

Keep the heat low, and add some roughly chopped olives. If you don’t like olives, you can add finely chopped onion, pine nuts, anchovies, almonds, cashew nuts or whatever you feel like.

For the salad dressing:

Use the best olive oil you have for salad dressing (extra virgin and all that), although any olive oil will do ok. Mix ratio of 5 tablespoons olive oil to 1 tablespoon wine vinegar (any vinegar but NOT malt will do), Add ¼ teaspoon mustard powder if you have it, ½ teaspoon herbs or garlic powder if you want to. Put all the bits in a jar and shake them together thoroughly.

Use a bag of mixed salad leaves, put them in a bowl, and no-one cares if there are no other ingredients.


This whole dish can be put together in about 15 minutes, and everyone thinks you’re fantastic.