SPAGHETTI ALLA PUTTANESCA TO START THE YEAR OFF..
Welcome to 2012 and my best wishes to you and yours for a wonderful year. Of course since it's the
beginning of the year I've been trying to come up with a spectacular start of year blog for you. That means
planning. Guess what? When I plan a blogpost it just doesn't happen. It's best to let it happen organi-
cally...let it just pop into my head and go with it. So here you have it, yesterday was National Spaghetti
Day (I get a kick out of those named days, really, someone said it would be that day and people said ok to
it, but, makes an ordinary day a little something extra. I sometimes look at the inside of my refrigerator as
an oversized surprise basket from the Food Network show CHOPPED. I open it and scan the shelves and
then dinner or a meal appear. Top shelf..a container of Gaeta Olives, jar of Sicilian Anchovies...cheese
drawer..a dried bunch of Sicilian Oregano...on the door, a bottle of Imported Salt-cured capers..middle
shelf, a Glad plastic container of leftover plain spaghetti. Stop right there...now I've pulled into the docks
in the Harbor of Naples, Italy and I am going to put together a Puttanesca Sauce. Shrouded in mystery,
all of which are probably untrue except that the dish most likely originated in that neighborhood, possibly
the same way my meal came together, using ingredients on hand and a little immagination. Or, it
was concocted by the "putane" (prostitutes) who serviced the sailors and dock workers and it was a
quick meal to prepare between "clients". That's where the name comes from, literally meaning as
cooked in the Whore's Style. Cool.
There's the city of Naples and Mt.Vesuvius in the background. From this place, particularly the
Porto di Napoli (Port of Naples) comes this off the charts flavorful sauce.
Enter the Porto di Napoli with me ( ok, i took this picture in June 2008 on a vacation there, but work with
me here..isn't that more fun?) and let's make a Spaghetti (the most popular pasta for this dish) alla
Puttanesca for 4-6. If this takes you more than 1/2 hour, you are overcooking the sauce. Just sayin...
Cook 1 lb of Spaghetti (like a Barilla, or DeCecco brand) al dente according to the package. While
your water is coming to the boil...assemble your sauce ingredients in one spot...the classically
trained chef will call this a Mise en Place...everything in it's place and prepared for cooking so you can
easily put your meal together. Have on hand, 3-4 anchovy filets (it's the heart and soul of this
dish, without it, it's not a Puttanesca sauce, just a tasty sauce but not Puttanesca), 3 large sliced cloves
of garlic, 1 tbs. rinsed salt-packed capers, 2 tbs. fresh chopped Italian flat leaf parsley, 1/2 tsp. oregano,
1/2 tsp. peperoncino (red hot pepper flakes), 1 cup of San Marzano tomatoes, crushed into pieces with
your hands, or 2 cups of in season sliced Cherry Tomatoes,extra virgin olive oil., 10 pitted Gaeta olives.
Once you have mastered this process feel free to add more or less of something, but....these
proportions I have (not written in stone) do give the finished dish a balance of all the different
flavors, not too much of one or the other. In a wide pan, heat 2 tbs. of the olive oil, then add
the pepperoncino first, releases the chile heat and flavor into the oil...then add the olives,
they will release this briny goodness into the mix, then the anchovies and garlic, then the
oregano and 1/2 the parsley. This whole process will take you about 3 minutes...DO NOT LET
the GARLIC BURN!..add the tomatoes and stir. Let this cook down about 15 - 20 minutes on
a low flame..the sauce will reduce and be very concentrated. Give a taste to the sauce...it
may be salted enough from the anchovies, capers, and olives. REMEMBER, you can always
add more salt to a dish, but you can never take it out (poor Chris on TopChef last night found
that out the hard way when his rub of the BBQ challenge contained way too much salt and he
was sent packing, you don't want to be Chris!).
Here you can see how the sauce has cooked down...look below:
Drain the pasta and reserve 2 tbs of the pasta water. Add the drained pasta and the pasta water to
the pan of sauce and on a low flame heat it all through for about 3 minutes until the pasta has
soaked up the sauce and it well coated...add the rest of the parsley and serve. Did that seem too
simple? It's Italian cuisine, it's supposed to be. Your ingredients make the dish. Longer cooking of
this sauce will cause the flavors to actually lessen, or change somewhat. Your finished dish should
look like this:
The flavors on this pasta are staggering...like Lidia tells us week after week on her PBS shows,
the sauce is a condimento...it merely dresses the pasta...try it this way and I think you will agree
with me on this one.
Now, Arriverderci Napoli.....it's time for the Jersey Shore Premiere...Buona Notte a Tutti!
Posted by peter battaglia at 1/5/2012 11:37 PM 
Categories: NAPOLETANA FOOD, ANCHOVIES
Tags: SPAGHETTI PASTA SAUCE TOMATOES ITALIAN FOOD ITALIAN ITALIAN CUISINE ANCHOVIES
Categories: NAPOLETANA FOOD, ANCHOVIES
Tags: SPAGHETTI PASTA SAUCE TOMATOES ITALIAN FOOD ITALIAN ITALIAN CUISINE ANCHOVIES
About to 'leave', my favourite pasta recipe popped into the box! Happy New Year and Buona Notte to you!! First of all, thank you for the beautiful photos to make us jealous. Second, thank you for the best 'puttanesca' recipe in my now book, and, loving guts and flavour, I have made this forever. The name makes it more the more fun
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Buon principio! Prof, you've started the year off with another terrifically informing post. It looks great, will taste even better, and all that goodness packed into a cooking lesson - heck of away to start the year, I say. Thanks for all the great reading and grand eating. All the best to you and yours! Adri
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i sent to 2 good friends. one was born in italy and he is a foodie
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This looks great !
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ty!! easy and delicious!
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thx for your support Tammy!! I'll keep posting until the warm weather starts..then the food profile changes a bit.
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will try to do by myself!! Thanks
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