What spices go with pasta

Aglio e olio, arrabbiata, cime di rapa — the chilli goes into warm oil with garlic before the pasta ever appears, because that is where it can disperse. Sprinkled over a finished plate it sits on top and tastes raw.

How: Warmed in oil with garlic, off a high heat, before the pasta goes in

Add alongside: Garlic, Parsley, Black pepper

Cacio e pepe is two ingredients and pepper is one of them, which makes it the clearest demonstration in Italian cooking that a spice can be the dish rather than a seasoning on it. Toasting the pepper in the dry pan first is the step that separates a good version from a dull one.

Add alongside: Cheese, Nutmeg, Garlic

The central pairing of southern Italian cooking, and one where the mechanism matters. Flakes are warmed in olive oil at the start so the fat-soluble capsaicin and carotenoids move into the oil, which then coats the pasta — aglio e olio is that idea with nothing else added. Chilli sprinkled on at the end does not distribute and does not taste the same.

How: Aglio, olio e peperoncino; Arrabbiata and puttanesca; Bloomed in the oil before anything else enters the pan

Add alongside: Garlic, Oregano, Fennel seed

• Warm oil, not hot. These flakes carry seed and sugars and scorch into bitterness quickly.

Only where there is dairy — lasagne, cannelloni, anything with béchamel — and there it is near-universal in Italian practice. On a tomato sauce it reads as an error.

Add alongside: Cheese, Black pepper, Spinach

• A rasp, and only with dairy. Nutmeg in a tomato sauce is out of place.

Recorded for the wider category of plain starches rather than for pasta specifically. Za’atar herb is at its best on something bland with fat and salt, and a plain wheat base — bread above all, but noodles and grains too — is exactly that.

How: Stirred into olive oil and tossed through; With lemon and olive oil on a grain salad

Add alongside: Lemon, Sesame seed, Garlic