Spaghetti Arrabiata

This is a rich tomato sauce flavoured with garlic and hot chillies, which we bulked out with eggplant. You’ll need a large wok-style pan and a second pot for cooking the spaghetti.
Feeds six.
Ingredients

• Good quality olive oil
• Two medium-sized brown onions, diced
• Four cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• One large red chilli, deseeded and sliced into fine strips
• 425g tin of crushed tomatoes
• 700g bottle of passata (tomato puree)
• Red wine
• One eggplant, chopped into 1cm cubes
• Fresh basil, hand-ripped into large shreds (not chopped)
• Handful of kalamata olives (I prefer with seeds in, but you can use the seeded olives if you prefer)
• Salt and pepper
• Thin spaghetti
• Parmesan cheese

Steps
1. Drag out your coals close to the fire itself, and make a level spot for your pan. Heat the pan for a few minutes before dropping in a couple of good lugs of the olive oil.
2. When the oil starts to sizzle, throw in the onions and let them sauté for five minutes or so.
3. Once the onions have started to glisten, add the garlic and chilli. Let that sauté for another five to 10 minutes.
4. Empty the tinned tomatoes and passata into the pan, along with about a cup of red wine.
5. Once that starts to bubble, add the eggplant, basil and olives. Add salt and pepper.
6. Let the results simmer for at least half an hour. Remember, the flavour comes from the cooking time…the longer this sits on the campfire, the richer your sauce will become. You want it to reduce slightly, and for the eggplant to go really soft and take on the flavour of the sauce.
7. About 20 minutes out from serving, get a pot of water into the coals to heat for the spaghetti. Once it’s simmering, add enough spaghetti to feed your crew – noting recommended cooking times on the packet.
Serve this up with a few extra sprigs of fresh basil and shavings of parmesan cheese