Silvia Colloca's Neapolitan curly fettuccine in a tomato sauce sharpened with chilli and garlic, a piece of capsicum and a parmigiano rind dropped in to add depth as it simmers. The rind melts halfway, thickening the sauce naturally. Old-school sauce-making.

The parmigiano-rind trick is the Italian household technique that defines proper sauce-making across the country. Hard cheese rinds (the woody outer edges that most home cooks throw out) keep beautifully in the fridge or freezer and add depth, umami and a natural thickening to slow-simmered sauces. The rind softens and partially dissolves into the sauce over the cook; whatever's left at the end gets fished out and discarded.

The single piece of red capsicum is the second small Italian trick that distinguishes this Partenope (the ancient name for Naples) sauce from a generic tomato base. The capsicum, cut into one large piece and left to simmer in the sauce, releases a sweet, slightly smoky depth as the cell walls break down; remove the piece before serving. The sauce reads complex without anyone being able to point to a single ingredient.

Curly fettuccine (mafalda, the long ribbon pasta with frilled edges) catches the sauce in its ruffles in a way smooth shapes cannot. The ridges hold the tomato and the small pieces of garlic and chilli, giving every forkful a full mouthful of sauce rather than the slide-off-the-fork experience of poorly-matched pasta and sauce. A glass of cold Aglianico or a Vesuvio rose.