Napolitan

Variations

• Teppan Napolitan: Served on a hot iron plate over a layer of beaten egg.
• Bacon Napolitan: Use bacon instead of sausage.
• Seafood: Add shrimp and squid.
• Spicy: Finish with a dash of Tabasco.

Tips

• Letting the boiled spaghetti sit is the same move fried rice makes with yesterday's rice. Cooking rice explains why fried rice fails with freshly cooked grain — "it is too wet, so it clumps in the pan and never gets coated" — and names what the cooling does: "the starch retrograding in the fridge is exactly what makes the grains separate." That guide then sorts four uses of the same property, from separating to binding to breaking. Khao pad takes the separating one, with "cold, day-old rice". Spaghetti rested a few minutes is that property on wheat instead: amylose recrystallising firms the surface, so the strands fry rather than steam against each other. The diner's trick has a name.
• Which is what makes boiling the noodles deliberately past al dente survivable. A strand that is going to be fried and then sauced has two more chances to soften; without the rest, those two chances are what turn a soft noodle into a mushy one. It is also where this dish parts from yakisoba, which buys its noodles already steamed and only has to loosen them.
• Frying the ketchup and adding the Worcestershire are two different jobs. Cooking the ketchup down in the pan first is what blooming spices asks of any wet paste — keep it there until the raw note goes. The Worcestershire is already explained on shepherd's pie: it is "a fermented anchovy sauce, which is why one tablespoon does so much — anchovies salted and matured for months, with tamarind for acid, molasses for sweetness."
• Cook the pasta soft (past al dente) — that's what makes Napolitan chewy and tender.
• Fry the ketchup first to cook off its raw tang and deepen the flavor.
• Let the boiled noodles rest a bit so they don't overcook when fried (a diner trick).
• A knob of butter rounds out the flavor.
• A little Worcestershire is the secret to its umami.