How to cook spaghetti ?

Ingredients for the spaghetti (serves six)

* 1 kg spaghetti (decent stuff such as Barilla, De Cecco, etc.)
* 7 liters water
* two tablespoons olive oil
* one teaspoon salt
* two tablespoons butter
* freshly chopped basil
* freshly grated Reggiano parmesan cheese

Preparation

Chop the onions - not too finely. Press the garlic. Pour olive oil into a large saucepan, add the onions and fry them in the olive oil until they change colour. Now crumble the mince into the onions and fry it until it is completely done (no red bits left). Continue frying the mince and the onions while styrring to let some of the water that has accumulated evaporate. When the mince is nice and crumbly, pour in the red wine.

Now add the tomatoes, the tomato concentrate, the honey and the spices. Let the whole lot simmer for an hour with no lid on the saucepan - we want the sauce to reduce to get rid of some of the water - that will make it tastier.
Preparing pasta

Allow roughly 200g of pasta per head (for the very hungry) - a normal portion is around 150g. Boil a lot of water (1 liter per 100g), add some olive oil and salt. When the water is boiling, add the pasta. I normally use a timer to keep track of the cooking time (check the pasta package) - tends to be 10 - 12 minutes for spaghetti. Check at the lower end of the cooking time to see if they are "al dente". Now put out the whole lot into a colander which you have placed in your sink. Turn on the cold water and rinse the spaghetti under the water (while they are still in the colander). Put the saucepan back onto your hob and add 2 tablespoons of butter. Melt the butter. Put the pasta back into the saucepan and heat it up while turning it until it's hot. The pasta will taste great, not stick together and be just right!