Or how to impress an Italian with Bahamian fast food:
(N.B. I’m going to be quite even more bossy than normal in this post. That’s just the way Italians are about food. Do you want to impress one or not? Well then follow along…)
Step 1: Get down to the dock at Montagu (follow the seagulls and the smell of “sun warmed” conch shells, you can’t miss) and buy lobster from the guys with boats. Haggle a bit, preserving dignity on all sides. Aim to pay less than $10 per kilo. I shit you not. (This recipe will work with more pricey lobsters, but you won’t feel quite as eco-smug.)
Step 2: Drive home, avoiding kamikaze overtakers on the airport road who seem to think the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies specifically to intersecting cars. Celebrate survival by boiling lobster in salty-as-the-sea water for 30 minutes and remove the meat.
Step 3: Make stock. Firstly take out aggression on lobster by placing carapace in plastic bag and hitting the bejesus out of it with a rolling pin. (Remember to close bag first, unless you are planning a Pollock-esque kitchen redecoration.) Place shards in pan (along with any scary-eyed fish skeletons you happen to have accumulated, as you do, in the freezer) with chopped carrots, celery, onion, thyme, parsley stalks and bay leaves. Cover in cold water and bring to the merest simmer for 30 minutes, skimming scum as you go. Strain and discard scary/beady-eyed bits. Freeze most of the stock for soups, risotti etc., leaving about 350ml out for the sauce.
Step 4: Make the pasta sauce. Chop half a red onion very finely and sauté in olive oil until soft. Throw in a glass of white wine and cook down. Meanwhile peel and deseed about 10 medium tomatoes and chop the flesh. Add to the onion with two good ladlefuls of your stock and cook down well too until the sauce is thickening and starting to adhere to the bottom of the pan when you stir it. You want a consistency that is saucey, not at all watery if you are to impress your tame Italian. (A watery sauce is very inglese, the worst possible insult with regards to pasta. I still shudder at the memory of that particular critique.) Remember the pasta will be a little wet, so err on the dry side. The sauce will take at least 40 minutes, and slower is usually better. When you’re happy with it, put the lid on and turn the heat to low while cooking the spaghetti (and only spaghetti. OK, well maybe linguine at a pinch. But nothing else. And make it De Cecco.) The pasta has to be al dente for seafood, even more so than normal. While that’s cooking, chop about 200g lobster meat into 1cm chunks together with a handful of flat-leaved parsley and add both to the sauce to warm through. Chuck in the pasta once drained, together with a glug of olive oil to bring the sauce together. Mix well. Serve. Mangia!
Congratulations! If you followed my guidelines recommendations procedure without repetition, hesitation or deviation you just made spaghetti all’astice and impressed an Italian. Aren’t you proud? ‘Cos I was…
P.S. Extra points if you can eat this in a white t-shirt, off a white tablecloth whilst drunk off your tits on white wine without staining yourself, anyone else at the table or the ceiling. At this point you are an honorary Italian and no longer need my help.
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