Nerano is a charming Italian fishing village south of Naples on the tip of the Sorrento peninsula, just across from Capri. It is here the Spaghetti alla Nerano was  invented in the 1950s. Stanley Tucci introduced flocks of American fans to this classic dish in the first episode of his “Searching for Italy” series, And recently the New Yorker published a definitive recipe for this fabulous dish. We tried it a couple of times and have some suggestions to make it work a little better.

While the ingredients are just spaghetti, zucchini, cheese and maybe a pat of butter, there are some details in the recipe that make it work so well. First of all, the zucchini slices are deep fried, not pan fried, and you want them to get quite brown, nearly burnt to develop the flavor in an otherwise pretty tasteless vegetable.

Confronted with the need to thinly slice three or four zucchini, we resorted to our Cuisinart food processor, using the 2mm slicing disk.

Probably the most important thing about this dish is assembling while everything is still hot, so the cheese will melt. In professional kitchens. Two people assemble this dish. We’ll tell you how we did it with only two hands below.

The basic ingredients are:

• 3 medium zucchini
• 8 oz spaghetti
• Deep frying oil: sunflower or canola
• 2-4 oz grated cheese (Parmegiano Reggiano or Provolone del Monaco or Caciovavallo)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 bunch basil leaves, cut up
• Pat of butter

1. Grate the cheese in a food processor, and remove to a bowl
2. Slice the zucchini into thin, uniform slices. We used a 2mm slicing disk.
3. Deep fry the zucchini slices, until quite brown. For 3 zucchini, we divided them into 4 batches for frying.
4. Put the zucchini on paper towel on a plate to let them drain.

1. Bring a couple of quarts of salted water to a boil and add the spaghetti all at once, stirring with a pasta fork to make sure it submerges.
2. Heat the zucchini and garlic in a skillet.
3. If your spaghetti requires, say, 4 minutes to cook, scoop out a cup of pasta water around the 2 minute mark.
4. Put about 10% of the zucchini in the bottom of a medium bowl, stir in a handful cheese and add hot water to help melt the cheese into a creamy sauce.

1. As soon as spaghetti is about done, lift a little out of the boiling water and mix it into the bowl. Do not drain the spaghetti: it will cool too quickly, just lift it right out of the hot water.
2. Then in several layers, add zucchini, hot spaghetti and cheese and stir, adding more hot pasta water when you need it. The zucchini and cheese tend to clump together, so this layered mixing helps distribute it throughout the pasta. You may not need all the spaghetti. But when you have mixed all the zucchini and cheese with some of the spaghetti, stop and arrange the mixture on a serving plate.
3. Top with a pat of butter and the basil leaves and serve right away.

You can serve this as a main dish or as a side dish. Here we illustrate a side dish serving with a few meatballs to make the meal.  You will be amazed at how good this simple meal can be!