Name: Halloween spaghetti with eyeballs
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 people
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 150 g guanciale (or pancetta), in strips; 1 tsp chilli flakes (peperoncino); 1 tbsp tomato purée; 400 g tinned peeled tomatoes, roughly crushed; salt; 400 g spaghetti; 8 mozzarella balls (bocconcini); 8 pitted black olives; 80 g Pecorino Romano, freshly grated

A pasta dish: spaghetti in the spicy, deep red tomato sauce of an Amatriciana with crisp guanciale and chilli flakes. For Halloween, top it with mozzarella eyeballs with an olive as the pupil and thin red veins of sauce. Creepy to look at, but ready in 40 minutes and simply delicious.

Method

Fry the guanciale

Heat a large frying pan without oil and fry the strips of guanciale over a medium heat until golden and crisp, about 5 to 6 minutes. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and set aside. Leave the fat in the pan.

Make the sauce

Fry the chilli flakes and tomato purée in the fat for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and simmer gently for 12 to 15 minutes until you have a thick, dark red sauce. Season sparingly with salt.

Make the eyeballs

Pat the mozzarella dry with kitchen paper. Slice the olives into thin rings. Make a small dent in each mozzarella ball with the tip of a knife and press an olive ring into it as the pupil. Use a cocktail stick to draw a few thin, red veins of sauce across the white.

Cook the pasta

Cook the spaghetti in plenty of salted water, 1 minute less than the packet says. Keep a cup of cooking water.

Combine

Drain the pasta and toss it through the sauce with a splash of cooking water and half of the guanciale. Stir over a low heat for 1 minute until the sauce lightly coats the spaghetti.

Serve

Twirl the spaghetti with a fork and spoon into nests on warm plates. Place 2 eyeballs on and against each nest and finish with the rest of the guanciale and a generous amount of pecorino. Serve immediately.

Tips & notes

This is the site's Amatriciana with an extra tablespoon of tomato purée for a deeper red colour and a Halloween finish. The guanciale and the pecorino are already salty, so go easy on the salt.

Chef's tip

Pat the mozzarella very dry, otherwise the olives will slide off. Make the eyeballs just before serving so they stay white and smooth. For an extra creepy effect, use black spaghetti with squid ink (al nero di seppia): the sauce stays just as red.

Variations

Black spaghetti: use spaghetti al nero di seppia for a pitch-black nest.
Vegetarian: leave out the guanciale, fry the chilli flakes in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add 1 chopped clove of garlic and 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika.

Contains: Gluten Milk