Nigella Lawson has divided fans after sharing a recipe based on the ultimate love-or-hate ingredient: Marmite.
In one of her classic recipes, Nigella pairs the controversial (ahem, downright delicious) yeast spread with spaghetti to make a cheap and cheerful pasta dish.
Along with the spaghetti and Marmite, all you need to make the deeply savoury carbfest is a bit of unsalted butter and some grated parmesan - making it a great solution to evenings where you can barely be arsed to cook, let alone run to the shop to buy ingredients.
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But while that all sounds like a dream come true for any discerning pasta lover, it seems some fans have reacted with nothing but sheer horror to the idea after Nigella shared the recipe on Twitter as part of her #RecipeOfTheDay series.
"So many of you know and love this already, and the rest of you are probably horrified by it: #RecipeOfTheDay is Spaghetti with Marmite," she tweeted.
Nigella explained that Aussies could substitute the Marmite for Vegemite, while asking Italians to go easy on her.
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"Don't shout at me," she said.
But people did.
"There must be something wrong with you," one fan wrote on Instagram, where she also posted the article.
Someone else referred to it as 'an abomination', while a third commented: "I am absolutely appalled, Nigella! Vegemite on buttered toast is divine but with pasta?"
In the recipe, which was first featured in her 2010 book Kitchen, Nigella explains that the recipe was first dreamt up by Italian-born food writer Anna Del Conte, saying she stumbled across the idea in her memoir, Risotto with Nettles.
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"She introduces it as hardly a recipe, but I wanted to include it because I haven't as yet found a child who doesn't like it," Nigella says.
"I know the combination of pasta and Marmite sounds odd to the point of infeasibility, but wait a moment, there is a traditional day-after-the-roast pasta dish, in which spaghetti is tossed in stock, and I have eaten shortcut versions of this in Italy (recreated guiltlessly in my own kitchen) which use a crumbled stock cube, along with some butter, olive oil, chopped rosemary and a little of the pasta cooking water to make a flavoursome sauce for spaghetti."
She adds: "If you think about it, Marmite offers saltiness and savouriness the way a stock cube might. I'm glad this recipe is here, and I thank Anna for it."
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Thankfully, many other people commented to say they could heartily vouch for the recipe, with one saying on Twitter: "I've made this many times and can confirm its amazingness."
Another fan wrote: "Can confirm it's delicious."
Someone else said: "This this this! We've been making marmite and pasta since you made it on one of the earlier shows (and beating marmite into spread to make easier sandwiches on your recommendation too)."
Come on folks, open your Marmite minds.
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Featured Image Credit: BBC/PA
Topics: Food, News, UK, Marmite
