Zucchini pasta with crispy capers and pistachios

Zucchini is treated as two different vegetables here, which is the trick worth stealing even if you never make the rest of it. Half goes into the oil in thin rounds and comes out crisp, then sits in red wine vinegar and turns sweet-sour. The rest is cut in chunks and cooked until it gives up and becomes the sauce.

Everything is fried in the same oil, in order, and that oil then becomes the base of the pasta. Do not pour any of it away.

1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium-high. Fry one batch of the sliced zucchini 5 to 7 minutes, until golden brown, and lift it out with a slotted spoon onto a plate lined with kitchen paper. Salt it. Fry the rest in two more batches the same way, then put all of it in a small bowl with the vinegar and leave it to marinate.
2. Drop the heat to medium. Fry the capers 2 to 3 minutes, until crisp and dark green, and lift them out too. They burst open like tiny flowers, which is how you know they are done.
3. Fry the basil in the same oil about 1 minute, until it goes dark and brittle, then the pistachios for 1 minute, until slightly golden. Once the nuts are cool enough to handle, chop them roughly.
4. Pour the hot oil into a medium saucepan. Add the chunked zucchini and ¾ tsp salt and cook over high heat 5 minutes, with the odd stir, until lightly browned.
5. Stir in the garlic and the pasta and cook 1 minute, then add 2½ cups hot water. Bring it back to a boil and cook 8 to 10 minutes to al dente, keeping the pasta moving so it never settles on the bottom, until the water has reduced. If it dries out before the pasta is ready, add ¼ cup water at a time.
6. Stir in half the pistachios and half the fried zucchini. Tip it onto a platter and scatter over the rest, along with the capers and the fried basil.

It is as good at room temperature as it is hot, and honestly rather good cold out of the fridge at midnight, though I would never say so in front of the person who made it.