Now, I know what you’re thinking, spag bol isn’t exactly the spiciest food in the world, but please don’t let the name confuse you. My spag bol can have a real kick. It’s also served with other forms of pasta that spaghetti. It’s based on what I used to call “mince creation” that I made at university but these days I’m rich and can afford jars of bolognese and when it gets spicy it probably bears more relation to chilli than anything else.

So, to prepare you oil the pan with chilli oil (that I’ve been improving for about a year now, adding the chillies from the old bottle to the new one as I use it up. It’s now 50% chillies and will bring a warmth to the lips when used to cook anything.

Add the mince. I threw in a large pack so I could freeze some. I think it was 400g. May have been more. You want lean mince. Spice with smoked paprika, garam masala, cumin and whatever other curry spices you may have. No more than half a teaspoon of each. Add an oxo cube. Bung in some dried herbs. If you want to add a bit of fun into the mix bung in a packet of old el-passo taco mix, I did Splash of soy sauce and some worcestershire sauce to add some liquid back in and cook off until browned.

Bung in some chopped veg. A sweet pepper, trimmed fine beans, asparagus, sweet corn, that kind of thing and, ooooh, half a teaspoon of chopped chilies. Cook for a few more minutes, then add some Lloyd Grossman tomato and chilli bolognese sauce. Leave to simmer for 15 minutes while you cook the pasta.

Meanwhile grab a teaspoon and take a small sample to your wife. At this point the dish is what I would call normal for my taste. Not spicy, just a little piquancy to add some fun to the dish. The Zozo has a lower tolerance for spice than me so we’re wanting to find a happy middle ground that might spark of labor but not result in her head being blown off. She wanted more spice.

While simmering add another half teaspoon of chopped chillies. Stir and take a second sample to your wife. A teaspoon of the very lazy chopped chillies is what I’d usually use in a meal for 1, and a very spicy meal it is thank you very much, however, that’s a smaller quantity of food and usually in a dish that The Zozo calls “stinky fish”. A slightly better name would be spicy teriyaki salmon. I’m guessing we’re probably at 1/4 the amount given the volume of food, but I’m not sure how the other ingredients will act to enhance or hide the spiciness. More spice.

While simmering add another teaspoon of chopped chillis, stir, taste yourself, decide its lame and and two more teaspoons of chopped chillies, another third of a teaspoon for good measure and a real good helping of tabasco sauce (probably about 20 shakes), stir some more and serve. We had ours with tubey pasta, but you can also have it with bow pasta, twirly pasta or shell pasta, or indeed any pasta you like. Forgo the cheese because you didn’t realise you’d run out, but serve with nice garlic flatbread and, if you’re a pregnant lady with a low tolerance for spice, several glasses of milk.

Personally I thought it was a tour de force, although maybe a little heavy on the tabasco as that has a tendency to flavour things, which was just on the cusp of being very spicy. We’re I to make it again I’d possibly use four and a half spoons of chillies instead of four and a third and forgo 10 shakes of the tabasco.

There was two servings left over from dinner so I put one in the fridge for me tonight and one in the freezer. I may see if I can get some microwave pasta and take the third serving into work with me tomorrow. I can’t see The Zozo having any more. It didn’t bring on labour and I think she found it quite hard going, poor thing.

You will need (per person):

• 1 Large Egg (I’m not going to go all ecomentalist on you but free range do taste better)
• 4oz plain flour (sieved if you can be bothered, can cut down on lumps or extra whisking)
• 0.5-1.5oz sugar (use less if you’re making savoury pancakes, more for sweet)
• A quarter of a pint of milk (roughly, depends how thick you want your mixture)

You will also need:

• A mixing bowl (the more people you’re making for the bigger it will need to be)
• A mixing implement (wooden spoon, metal spoon, whatever floats your boat really)
• A whisk² (at a push you can get away with just stirring with a spoon)
• A pancake griddle³ (no, not a pan, see the footnote)
• Optionally: a measuring jug to poor the mixture into (makes it easier to poor into the griffle)

The method:

Sieve (if you’re into that kind of thing) the flour into the mixing bowl. Add the sugar and made a depression for each egg (you can use the egg itself for this). Crack the egg(s) into the mixture and add a small amount of milk. Mix the mixture with the wooden spoon slowly adding more milk. Once all the milk is mixed in take the whisk and go to town. Whisk forward. Whisk backwards. Whisk holding the whisk still, whisk while moving it about⁴. When the mixture is smooth and the constituency of thick soup you’re done. If you have the measuring jug poor the mixture into that, otherwise you’ll need to arrange some way to ladle, poor or otherwise decant the mixture from the bowl to the griddle.

Heat the griddle over a medium flame⁵, poor enough mixture to cover the griddle to a depth of about 2mm. Cook until you see the bubbles that form on the surface of the mixture burst and the surface become solid. Flip the pancake⁶ and cook the other side. Once done put on a plate and consume.

These pancakes can be served with sugar and Jif Lemon (the traditional way), with butter and topping (jam, honey, golden syrup) or with savoury fillings. My favourite is tuna mayonnaise with sweetcorn. Go to town, have fun, knock yourself out. The possibilities are endless and the world is, quite literally, the bivalve of your choice.

One tip is to make up the mixture with less sugar, make savoury pancakes for main, scoff those, add sugar to the remaining mix, make more pancakes, consume for pudding.

Enjoy.

¹Do bear in mind we’re British here, so none of this ridiculously thin French crepe rubbish, nor the stupidly thick, heart attack inducing thick pancakes. These are just right.

²Manually whisking is a pain in the behind, I recommend one of the whizzy whisks when you turn the handle and the two beaters spin. Great for getting rid of lumps in the mixture and huge fun to boot

³Using anything but a pancake griddle here is tantamount to drinking champagne out of a pint glass. We’re not heathens here people, we’re British, we do things properly or not at all. A griddle will be properly seasoned. To maintain the seasoning you don’t want to wash it. To avoid having to wash it you want to just cook pancakes and drop scones on it so it can be wiped clean. You go using something that you also cook bacon and eggs on and it’s going to get washed up and the seasoning will go, you could get flavours leaking in, it might not heat evenly, it might cause the pancakes to stick. No, right tool for the job so if you don’t have a griddle I suggest you go toddle off and get one now, I’ll be waiting when you get back… off you go… quickly!

⁴All this does rather assume the manual whisky thing. If you’ve got a boring hand held whisk (or no whisk at all) then you’re going to miss out. If you’ve got an electric whisk then you’ll probably be done before you have a chance to have fun.

⁵Not using gas? Hah! Good luck

⁶This doesn’t need implements but then you’re probably ignoring my insistence you use a griddle so you’ve only got yourself to blame if you can’t just flip the pancake using the pan and a deft wrist motion.