(Serves 8)

1kg prepared seafood, including squid rings and tentacles and prawns
Gozo sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
500g spaghettini or other thin dried pasta, broken into short pieces
Fish or shellfish stock

To serve: home-made garlic mayonnaise as well as raw fennel, carrots, small tomatoes, cucumber batons, spring onions, celery, blanched courgettes

Season the seafood and put to one side while you cook the pasta. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or sauté pan and in it gently fry the pasta until pale golden brown, taking care not to burn it, which is easily done. Have the stock simmering in another pan and add a ladle or so to the pasta. When it has almost been absorbed, add more, and so on until the pasta is tender.

As with risotto, it is difficult to say exactly how much liquid you will need, as this depends on the thickness of the pasta, how dry it is, how humid the atmosphere is, and so on. But generally, you should allow one and a half times liquid to solid, and perhaps up to twice the amount. The finished dish should be very definitely moist, but not swimming in sauce; the sauce is inside the pasta, as it were.

While this is cooking, get griddle or grill very hot, and cook the seafood just before you are ready to serve. Put the noodles in a bowl, the seafood on a platter with the crudités, and the garlic mayonnaise in another bowl.