SPAGHETTI SALMON SLIDERS WITH FRESH TOMATOES, PESTO & ROCKET LEAVES

South Park’s

Ingredients

• 250 gm spaghetti n. 5 • 1 egg • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil • 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese • 450 gm salmon, cut into small slider size pieces

• 2 tbsp pesto alla genovese • 6 slices plum tomato • 200 gm rocket • Salt & black pepper, to taste

Method

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add salt.

When the water begins to boil, add the spaghetti and cook according to the instructions on the pack.

Meanwhile, combine the egg, olive oil and cheese in a bowl and mix well.

When the pasta is ready, drain carefully; allow to cool for 5 minutes, then place in the egg mixture and carefully stir to coat the pasta.

Place the pasta in a flat baking pan ( about ½ inch) and bake in the oven at 200° C for a little more than 5 minutes or until lightly brown and crispy.

Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then using a cookie cutter, cut into small rounds.

Season the salmon with salt and pepper to taste then cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side.

Top the salmon with pesto, tomato and rocket, and sandwich between two pasta ‘ buns’.

Use cocktail sticks to hold together. Serve.

Every day at South Park Studios is different, but Trey Parker said this particular afternoon — Monday, September 12 — was especially memorable for him.

“There are times where we go, ‘ How do we tell Comedy Central that we don’t have a show?’” he said with sardonic delight. “This is one of those.”

Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, exuded an appearance of calm as they brainstormed in their airy offices, in a grey building on a stretch of highway at the edge of Los Angeles. But they were under considerable pressure to finish the first episode for the 20th season of their satirical animated series, which was due in less than 48 hours and would air that Wednesday.

At this stage — on the ninth draft of a script called Member Berries — they would like to have had 16 minutes of a 22minute episode. Stone and Parker said they had 12 1/ 2. (“That doesn’t mean that’s what we have done,” Parker cautioned. “That means that’s all we have figured out.”)

A dry- erase board in the room showed a nearly nonexistent third act, all empty ovals stacked like pancakes, as the collaborators kicked around the episode’s story elements: a new American national anthem rebooted by JJ Abrams, a comically inept xenophobe running for president and an addictive talking fruit that induces nostalgia for the pop culture of one’s youth.

How these pieces fit together wasn’t clear yet. But after two decades of making their show in this stressful, handson, seat- of- the- pants way, Stone and Parker were reasonably certain they would figure out something.

“I can’t believe I’m surprised by it,” Stone said. “How do we get to this point and have no story? But we just go through it again. For the eight- millionth time.”

Since its debut in 1997, South Park has spun more than 250 tales about foul- mouthed fourth graders in a Colorado town that invariably gets swept up in whatever social crisis the nation is facing that week. What began with a show about aliens installing a satellite in a child ( don’t ask) has evolved — sort of — into a series that, in its unapologetically crude way, can address debates over transgender bathrooms, racial discrimination or gratuitous violence in Game of Thrones.

Even as animation technology has improved and the South Park staff has grown exponentially, the show is still fundamentally the work of Parker and Stone, 46 and 45, who agonise over every instalment. ( Parker has had sole writing