TartQueen's Kitchen

Pasta (or Spaghetti) alla Puttanesca, otherwise known as “Whore’s Spaghetti” (although you don’t have to tell the kids that), is a recipe with a slightly murky origin story. One of the more popular origin myths was that it was made up by a cook in a brothel who had very little to work with, so threw what she could find into a pot, cooked it, and served it with spaghetti.

That’s the story I always heard, anyway.  Well, apparently, it’s not true.

Many signs point to the dish actually originating in the mid-20th Century.  The first known reference to “spagehetti alla puttanesca” in Raffaele La Capria’s Ferito a Morte (Mortal Wound), a 1961 Italian novel.

in 2005, a restaurant owner named Sandro Petti claimed he invented the recipe for “Puttanesca” in the 1950’s.

According to Wikipedia (and several other sources):

“The moment of inspiration came, when near closing one evening, Petti found a group of customers sitting at one of his tables. Petti was low on ingredients and told them he didn’t have enough to make them a meal. They complained that it was late and they were hungry. “Facci una puttanata qualsiasi (Make any kind of garbage),” they insisted. In this usage, puttanata is an Italian noun meaning something worthless. It derives from the Italian word for whore, puttana.

At the time, Petti had nothing more than four tomatoes, two olives and some capers; the basic ingredients for the sugo. “So I used them to make the sauce for the spaghetti,” Petti told Cuomo.

Later, Petti included this dish on his menu as spaghetti alla puttanesca.”

Makes sense. Almost like the origin of Nachos.

The sauce on its own is called “sugo alla puttanesca” and the ingredients will differ slightly from region to region.  In Napoli, they don’t use anchovies.  While, in Lazio, they are used along with chile peppers.  However it’s made, it’s a very popular dish throughout Italy.

Now, to the recipe:

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The main reasons I like this dish are its ease of preparation and its taste.  I’m an advocate of strong-tasting food and this sauce certainly fits that criteria.

And, yes. This dish is very efficacious.

As always, a few notes:

1.  Whatever regional variations there are for this dish, the constants always are olives, capers, and tomatoes.

2.  I prefer spaghetti with this dish.  However, you can use linguine, pappardelle, or fettucine as well.  You want to have a pasta that will stand up to the sauce.

3.  Be sure to rinse the capers and olives before you add them to the sauce.  Otherwise, the sauce will be like a salt lick.

4.  Make sure you buy the small capers, not the larger caperberries.

5.  Speaking of olives, save yourself some time and buy already pitted.  Also, be sure to buy brine-cured and not oil-cured.  Oil cured  olives are meant to be eaten out-of-hand.  They don’t really stand up to cooking.

6.  You can use any combination of olives you like.  I generally go with a mix of green and black.  If you can find them in bulk, great.  If you have to buy them in the jar, you’ll more than likely have to rinse off any seasoning included in the oil/brine in the jar.

7.  If you would like to make this sauce vegan or just don’t like anchovies, omit them.  For my part, though, the more the merrier.

The Ingredients

2 tbsp. olive oil

4 – 6 large cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp. red pepper flakes, more or less to taste

3 tbsp. capers, rinsed

6 anchovy fillets, chopped

2 c. pitted olives, very roughly chopped

1 28-oz can tomatoes

Salt & Pepper to taste, very judiciously used

1 lb. pasta

Parmigiano Reggiano

Mixed olives. Roughly chopped.

Capers. Rinsed.

Anchovies. Ready to be chopped.

1.  In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook until the garlic just begins to brown.

Garlic and chile flakes sauteing. Smelling great, by the way.

2.  Add the capers and cook for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Adding the capers.

3.  Add the anchovies and cook another 2 – 3 minutes, again stirring frequently.

Adding the anchovies. They’ll just melt into the sauce.

4.  Add the olives.  Cook another 3 – 5 minutes.

Adding the olives. Now things are really starting to look good.

5.  Add the tomatoes.  Mix well.  Let the sauce just come to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium-low.  Cook the sauce for 20 – 25 minutes until it thickens slightly.  Stir occasionally.

Adding the tomatoes. Now, it looks like a sauce.

Once the sauce begins to bubble up, turn the heat down to medium-low.

6.  Meanwhile, make the pasta according to the package directions.

**At this point you can do 1 of 2 things.  You can either save a cup of the pasta water just before you drain the pasta and use it if you decide to toss the pasta and sauce together (it will loosen the sauce so it will combine with the pasta more easily); or, simply drain the pasta and spoon the sauce over just as you get ready to serve.

In this example, I chose just to spoon some sauce over the pasta.

7.  After 20 – 25 minutes, remove the sauce from the heat, taste for seasoning, combine with the pasta however you choose, and serve with some grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

The sauce after cooking. Notice how it’s thicker. If you decide to add salt and/or pepper, do so judiciously.

Dinner!

Buon Appetito!

As we are now officially in the dog days of summer, it’s a good time to stay inside and bottle up some of the more pleasant summer memories of summer by making some more jam.

And there are few better memories than (seasonal) blueberries.  While, admittedly, they are not my favorite berry eaten out-of-hand, once blueberries have been cooked, they are a lovely thing.

Wild blueberries are grown as far as ideal conditions will let them; even as far north as human habitation (think northern Canada). Botanists and culinary historians believe that the indigenous peoples of America used wild blueberries for a number of foodstuffs: eating out of hand; drying them in the sun for preservation and use in pemmican (a form of dried meat), cakes, and puddings.  The dried berries were also ground for use in soups.

The blueberry that most of us know today were first commercially cultivated in the early 20th century.  They’re a variety called “highbush”, meaning that they are grown on bushes and small trees as opposed to in boggy soil of the lowbush blueberries.  Highbush berries are also larger than the lowbush varieties. Most  commercial cultivation of highbush blueberries comes from  British Columbia, Maryland, Western Oregon, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington.  Lowbush blueberries are a native fruit crop to Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Maine.

Blueberries are in the same genus as cranberries.  The Genus Vaccinium.  Blueberries are also related to lingonberries and huckleberries.  All of these fruits are grown in acidic soil and can have a wide variation in acidity both in pH and in taste.  One thing they all have in common is they are all very high in natural pectin.

(Some information from wikipedia.org and The Oxford Companion to Food, Davidson, 1999).

As I stated above, the indigenous peoples of America have used blueberries for millennia before settlers were introduced to them.  Now, thanks to importation and cultivation, blueberries are grown and eaten all over the world.  They are especially prized in France for use in pastries.

And, of course, for jam.  Yummy, yummy jam.

Now, on to the recipe.

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A few notes:

1.  You can use frozen blueberries in a pinch for this recipe.  I like to use blueberries in season – which, in Texas, would mean May – September – but, I have used frozen in the past and they work fine.

2.  Always buy extra blueberries.  This will make up for any that are bad, not ripe, or what you eat.

3.  If you would like to make this a totally sugar-free recipe, sugar-free honey is available at some grocery and health-food stores.  You can also use maple syrup if you’d rather go that route.  I don’t use artificial sweeteners, Stevia, or Splenda in my jams, so don’t ask about substitutions. Or, you could just omit the sweet component altogether. However, this will affect the set-up of the finished jam.

4.  Don’t forget the lemon juice.  It adds the acidity needed to activate the pectin in the blueberries.

5.  Don’t use too dark a honey (i.e. cotton or buckwheat).  The flavor will overpower the blueberries.  You want them to compliment, not compete.

6.  The set of this jam will also depend on how long you cook it.  The longer you cook, the more solid the set.  However, it won’t set up as stiffly as a jam made with commercial pectin.

7.  For the complete hows and whys of canning, please see my post from August 10, 2012, “Classic Strawberry Jam” (https://tartqueenskitchen.com/?p=756).

The Ingredients.

Beautiful blueberries.

6 pt. blueberries (12 c./approx. 4 1/2 – 5 lbs)

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8 ea. 10-oz bags frozen blueberries, thawed, juices saved (5 lbs.)

1 c. honey (I like to use wildflower or clover honey)

2 tbsp. lemon juice

1.  Wash and pick through the blueberries.  Discard or compost any that are spoiled or underripe.  If you are using frozen berries, place them into a large colander set over a large bowl and allow to thaw.  Be sure to save any juices that accumulate in the bowl.

I ate these.

2.  Combine the berries, honey, and lemon juice in a 4-quart saucepan. (If using frozen thawed berries, add the juice as well.) Stir to combine.  If you want to crush the berries with a potato masher to release some of the juices from the berries, go ahead.  It’s not necessary, however.  The berries will break down as they cook.

Blueberries, honey, and lemon juice in the pot and ready to go.

3.  Cover the saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil.  Stir frequently.

4.  Once the mixture has come to a boil, uncover the saucepan, reduce the heat to medium-low and boil the mixture for about 1 hour or until the jam looks thick and glossy.  Again, stir frequently.

The berries beginning to cook and break down.

Boiling the berries. If you like, you can put a thermometer in the jam. 220F is the temperature where jelling happens. However, be patient. This takes time.

Another way to test the thickness of the jam. Place a small bit of the jam on a frozen plate (or, in my case, an ice mug), run your finger through it, and see if it runs. Once it gets to the thickness you like, it’s done.

The jam ready to be jarred.

5.  Once the jam is ready, ladle it into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace.  Be sure to wipe off the rim of the jar, otherwise the jars may not seal properly. Place the lids on top and finger-tighten the rims. Process the jars for 10 minutes in boiling water. (Begin timing after the water comes to a boil.)

6. Take the jars out of the water and set them on racks to cool.  Once the jars have sealed (you’ll hear a “ping” noise, the lid will be concave, and, if you pick up the jar by its lid, it won’t come off), tighten the rims.  Let the jars sit until they are cool.

Beautiful, delicious, blue-purple  blueberry jam.

Enjoy!