Pasta Puttanesca
Okay, this one’s for my sister, Katy, also by request. I didn’t really know that this was a puttanesca sauce until after I made it a couple of times. I just wanted something with olives and capers and anchovies and garlic … i.e., salty. My sister probably likes this so much because she eats things like ‘green olives filled with yellow mustard’ (I know, but actually strangely appealing).
In any case, this is a simple variation on a basic tomato sauce. If you want to take it another direction, skip the capers, etc, and add some fake meat … or real meat, whatever. In fact with the puttanesca, some spicy sausage might be really good.
- 1 Large can whole tomatoes
- 1 Medium onion, chopped
- 1 Cup of Red Wine (optional)
- 5 Cloves of garlic (or more … ), chopped
- 1 Tin of anchovies in oil
- Olives (Greek mixed), chopped
- Capers
- Red pepper flakes to taste
- Pasta, cooked al dente
Directions:
- Put the pasta water on to boil.
- Sauté the onion adding salt, and after about a minute add the tin of anchovies with the oil; after another minute or two, add the garlic, red pepper flakes to taste, and some pepper. As the onions become translucent, the anchovies will start to dissolve into the oil. Add the capers and olives with some of their juice and let them heat through, about a minute or two.
- At this point, you should add the can of whole tomatoes and a cup of red wine if you’ve got some lying around. Toss/stir all the ingredients together, then turn the heat to medium-low and cover (you want a soft boil). If you don’t have any wine, you might add just a touch of water because the whole tomatoes can burn sometimes, especially if you’re making this sauce in a large pan instead of a pot.
- There are two directions you can take this recipe at this point: fast or slow. You can let the sauce simmer (on a slightly lower temperature) for ten, twenty, even thirty minutes before you start the pasta—this’ll give it a deeper, richer flavor, a thicker texture, and a dark crimson color. Or, you can let it cook (on a slightly higher temperature) as long as it takes the pasta to cook—this is still really good, you just need to cook the sauce on a little higher temperature to boil some of the liquid out and also mash the whole tomatoes up about 2/3 of the way through.
- Salt the past water and cook the pasta (I find that about two minutes less than whatever it says on the box is almost always just right). When done, drain, then combine them either in the pot with the sauce if there’s enough room, or back into the pot the pasta cooked in.
- Serve with some fresh herbs, chopped parsley or torn basil, and some fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.
This is also a pretty good dish to make for larger groups, as it really scales up very easily. It’s almost as easy to cook for fifteen as it is for two, and it really only takes two pots.
These long recipes also really make this look more difficult than it is, so I’m going to append a shorter version of this process. Also, pictures next time I make this one, too.
Short version:
Put pasta water on to boil. Sauté onions, progressively adding anchovies, garlic, salt, pepper, and red pepper, olives, and capers. Add can of whole tomatoes, cup of red wine, and stir. Cover and reduce heat. Cook pasta, combine with sauce, serve with fresh herbs and parmesan cheese.
(rg)
