Five Easy Pasta Sauces

Pasta is quick, easy and feeds the masses at short notice. A novice cook can learn to cook pasta to perfection without any bother, and with the wide range of shapes (fusilli, penne, farfalle, orecchiette, etc.,) and colours, it's very easy to make a meal that's attractive. And fussy children are often delighted with the shaped pasta, such as wagon-wheels and shells.

But pasta by itself with no sauce is bland, to say the least. Alone and sauceless, pasta tastes like congealed wallpaper glue – in fact, as glue is often made from flour and water, this is almost exactly what it is. Naked pasta sticks together in a sodden soggy lump. Pasta needs sauce!

Here are five easy pasta sauces that are no-fail favourites:

1. Spaghetti alla Puttanseca: This one needs the name explained, but it's a bit naughty. Literally, this means "whore's spaghetti" and was developed in the days when ladies of easy virtue went out in public (they weren't streetwalkers) as little a possible. This meant that they couldn't buy fresh ingredients every day like a respectable Italian housewife or housekeeping London lady would, so they had to use store-cupboard ingredients most days and shop once a week. You need salt (which goes in the water to cook the pasta), olive oil, 3 cloves garlic, 3 anchovy fillets, a tin of tomatoes, a cup of pitted black olives (but I dare say green ones will do), 4 T of capers and parsley. Start making the sauce while the pasta is cooking by heating the olive oil in a frying pan. First, fry the garlic and anchovies, then add in the tin of tomatoes, the olives and the capers. Cook for five minutes. Then pour it over the drained pasta when it's cooked, and top with chopped parsley.

2. Devilled spaghetti. Use 6 cloves of garlic, 2 small hot chilli peppers (jalapeños), salt, olive oil, lots of Parmesan cheese and parsley. Blend the garlic and chillis, then boil the mixture in enough salted water to cook the pasta. Strain the solids out (although you could leave them in if you wanted) and cook the pasta in the garlic-and-chilli infused water. Strain, then add olive oil, Parmesan and chopped parsley.

3. Vesuvius spaghetti (or any other long pasta). You need olive oil, 2 tins of tomatoes, 1 tsp dried oregano, salt, Parmesan cheese and 7 oz mozzarella. Heat the oil in a pan, then add the tomatoes, the oregano and the salt and boil for 20 mins. Cut the mozzarella into cubes. When the pasta and the sauce are cooked, drain the pasta then add the sauce to the pasta, plus the Parmesan and mozzarella. Stir together thoroughly and let the mozzarella melt slightly. Serve in a mound so it looks like an erupting volcano with molten mozzarella/lava streaming down the sides.

4. Spaghetti Bolognese – the real thing. Most people know a basic version of this involving mince and tinned tomatoes topped with grated cheese. The real thing has the following in the mince mixture (which should contain pork and beef mince plus sausage meat): onion, carrot, celery, bacon, white wine, tomato paste, stock and double cream. Begin by lightly browning the vegetables and the bacon(not the tomato paste) in olive oil, then adding the meat and wine and letting it cook thoroughly. Then the tomato paste and the stock go in, and the cream at the last minute. The cream is optional! To serve, put the sauce in the middle of a nest of pasta topped with grated Parmesan before being stirred in.

5. Tuna sauce. Quick and easy, and if eaten with a salad, makes a complete meal. Use a 200g tin of tuna, ½ a cup of walnuts, the grated rind of 1 lemon, 1 t Worcestershire sauce, 4 t chopped parsley, 4 basil leaves, salt, pepper and olive oil. Put everything except the oil, the salt and the pepper into a blender and process until smooth. Add the oil bit by bit to make a nice, smooth paste, then add the seasoning to taste. Stir thoroughly over the cooked pasta.