Four Friends, Ten Quid: A Supermarket Italian Supper With Nothing Skimped

There is a particular kind of anxiety that comes with cooking Italian food for other people in Britain. It is the fear that you will be judged on the parmesan. Or that a lack of proper San Marzano tomatoes will somehow be detectable in the sauce.

Let me be clear: it will not. I have cooked for people in kitchens with a single hob and a tin of own-brand chopped tomatoes, and I have cooked for people in kitchens with more olive oils than chairs. The meal that people remember is the one where they were fed properly and told to sit down. The rest is detail.

So this is a ten-pound dinner party for four. Not a ten-pound challenge, not a stunt — just a realistic shop, a menu that leans on cheap ingredients doing expensive-tasting things, and a plan that keeps you out of the kitchen for most of the evening.

The Brief

Four people. One supermarket run, no specialist shop. Everyone leaves full. Nobody asks where the pecorino came from.

I have built this around Aldi or Lidl prices, because that is where I shop when I am being careful. Tesco and Sainsbury's will land within a pound or two if you buy own-brand and skip the meal deals. The one thing I will not compromise on is the cheese — more on that below.

The Shopping List

• 500g dried pasta — 75p
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes — 70p
• 1 tin chickpeas — 45p
• 1 onion, 2 carrots, 1 celery stick — 60p
• 1 bulb garlic — 30p
• 1kg chicken thighs, bone-in and skin-on — £2.80
• 2 peppers — 80p
• A small jar of olives — 90p
• 1kg potatoes — 60p
• 1 bag of greens or a cabbage — 70p
• 500g strong white bread flour — 50p
• 1 tub of value vanilla ice cream — £1.20
• Store cupboard: olive oil, dried oregano, chilli flakes, salt, yeast, coffee

That is just under ten pounds, assuming you have the oil and the yeast. If you do not, buy the cheapest olive oil you can find and skip the ice cream — a plate of biscuits and a pot of coffee is a perfectly respectable Italian ending.

The Menu

To start: a warm flatbread with rosemary and sea salt, torn at the table, with a little bowl of olive oil. This is the whole trick of the evening. Bread made from 50p of flour reads as generosity, not thrift, as long as it is warm.

Primo: pasta e ceci — pasta with chickpeas. It sounds like a peasant dish because it is one, and it is one of the best things in the Italian repertoire. One tin of chickpeas, a little tomato, rosemary if you have it, and a ladle of the pasta water to make it creamy.

Main: chicken thighs roasted with peppers, olives and oregano. Bone-in thighs are the cheapest cut with the most flavour, and they forgive being left in the oven ten minutes too long — which, on a dinner party evening, they will be.

On the side: roast potatoes, because we are in Britain and it would be strange not to, and a heap of greens dressed with lemon and oil.

To finish: affogato. A scoop of vanilla ice cream, a shot of hot espresso poured over it at the table. It takes ninety seconds and feels like a restaurant flourish.

The Timetable

The day before, or the morning of: make the flatbread dough. It takes five minutes and improves overnight in the fridge. If you are making it on the day, give it two hours to rise somewhere warm.

Two hours before people arrive: brown the chicken thighs in a pan, then put them in a roasting tin with the peppers, olives, oregano, a glug of oil and a splash of water. Cover and set aside. This is the whole main course, ready to go.

Ninety minutes before: peel the potatoes and put them in cold salted water. Make the chickpea base — onion, carrot, celery, garlic, tomatoes, chickpeas — and leave it on the lowest heat, lid on, tasting occasionally.

Forty-five minutes before: chicken in the oven at 200C. Potatoes parboiled and into hot oil. Bread dough shaped and left to prove.

Twenty minutes before: bread in the oven. Greens blanched. Pasta water on to boil.

When they arrive: do not be doing anything complicated. Pour something. Tear the bread. Put the olives on the table. The pasta takes nine minutes, which is exactly enough time for everyone to sit down.

Where to Spend, Where to Save

Save on: tinned tomatoes (own-brand is fine — look for whole plum tomatoes rather than chopped, they are usually better quality), pasta (dried bronze-die pasta is lovely but not at this budget), chicken (thighs over breasts, always), and ice cream (value vanilla is indistinguishable once the coffee hits it).

Spend on: one proper piece of cheese. A wedge of real parmesan or pecorino, even a small one, will do more for the meal than anything else on this list. Grate it over the pasta and put the rind in the chickpea pot while it simmers. That is the difference between a cheap dinner and a mean one.

A Note on Hospitality

The point of a dinner party is not to demonstrate that you can afford nice ingredients. It is to make people feel that they were expected — that there was a chair, a plate, and enough of everything.

Ten pounds buys a lot of that, if you spend it on the right things. Bread, a pot of something slow, a chicken with crisp skin, a scoop of ice cream with coffee on top. Nobody at that table is going to be thinking about the receipt. They are going to be thinking about whether there is any bread left, and whether it would be rude to ask for more.