There are dishes that, with three ingredients, put whole kitchens of twenty to shame. Spaghetti alla Nerano is exactly one of them. Pasta, zucchini and cheese - and not a single drop of cream or butter - and in the end you get a sauce so silky that everyone will assume you hid something. The secret isn't in the ingredients. The secret is in the hand.

The dish comes from Nerano, a small seaside town near Naples, not far from Capri. The restaurant „Maria Grazia" claims it invented the recipe back in 1952, and the world only discovered it seriously when Stanley Tucci filmed it in his series on Italian cuisine. Since then it has spread like every good family secret - quietly, but indestructibly.

What you need (for 4 servings): 400 g spaghetti, 3 smaller zucchini, 180 g grated aged provolone, 40 g grated Parmigiano Reggiano, a good bunch of fresh basil, olive oil for frying, salt and freshly ground black pepper.

The zucchini first. Wash them and slice them into very thin rounds, two or three millimetres. Fry them in plenty of hot oil until they turn a light golden colour - soft inside, slightly caramelised, but not crisp. Drain them on paper and leave them to rest for about twenty minutes. That rest is not wasted time; it's precisely then that the flavour deepens.

Then the pasta. Cook the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. Before you drain it, keep two cups of the water it cooked in - that water is half the recipe, don't throw it out.

And now comes the magic. In a wide pan put a little of the oil you fried the zucchini in, most of the rounds and torn basil. Heat for a minute, add the drained spaghetti and stir gently. Take the pan off the heat and gradually add the cheese, alternating with a little of the warm cooking water, stirring without pause. This process - the Italians call it mantecatura - is what turns cheese and water into a glossy, creamy coating around every strand of pasta.

Serve at once, while the cream is at its peak. On top a few more fried zucchini, fresh basil and pepper. And then sit down, close your eyes and admit it to yourself: sometimes the fewest ingredients demand the most respect.