There comes a time in the middle of each week when you open the fridge only to be met by a desolate sight of wilted vegetables or half-eaten avocados.

The hump-day cooking blues are officially a thing. Whether you are a working parent juggling a career and family, a young couple with demanding work lives or a bachelorette enjoying your freedom and Tinder dates, there comes a time in the middle of each week when you open the fridge only to be met by a desolate sight of wilted vegetables or half-eaten avocados.

That’s when most of us declare it’s “cereal for dinner”, but as you reach for the milk you realise your child/partner/roommate has drunk all but a drop, and then put the bottle straight back into the fridge. Suddenly, takeaway is your only option.

Sound familiar? The good news is that if you have a few staple ingredients in stock, you don’t have to rely on someone else to cook and bring you dinner. You really can whip something up in half the time it takes you to dial the local Thai, Vietnamese or Indian joint, choose from their expensive menus and wait for the food to be delivered to you.

This meal is Italy’s version of fast food, a mere 10-minute meal with minimal washing up (take that, Jamie!). The simple sauce can be made from a few ingredients that are ever-present in Italian households, all while the pasta is boiling. Then it’s just a matter of mixing and gulping down with great pleasure.

But allow me to be a little pedantic about the matter of al dente pasta cooking. It seems to me manufacturers can never agree on that elusive point of pasta perfection and are overly generous on their cooking times. As a rule of thumb, if your packet suggests 10 minutes, start tasting after seven. No matter how delicious your sauce, if your pasta turns into glue, it’s game over. And that’s not what you need for your midweek fix.