TartQueen's Kitchen

I have to admit, sometimes, in this wanna-be low-carb world, I just want to enjoy a big bowl of pasta. It’s quick, easy, satisfying, and filling. But, of course, as always and most importantly, delicious.

So, I’m going to introduce you to one of my & Husband Steve’s favorite pasta dishes. Pasta alla Puttanesca.

Pasta alla Puttanesca literally translates into “Whores’ Pasta”.  Its origin myths are a bit murky, but by most accounts, it’s a dish that dates back only about 50 – 60 years and was most likely created in southern Italy.

Some say the dish was invented by an Italian restaurateur who had an influx of customers near closing time one evening and threw together what he had left over – some olives, tomatoes, and peppers. Another origin story is that is was named “puttanesca” because it was easy and everything went into it. A third story is “decent” Italian housewives made this sauce with whatever they had laying around and threw it at ladies of the night while screaming “puttana!”.

I’m not so sure about the third one. But, who knows?

This is an easy dish.  From prep to eating, it takes no more than 45 minutes.

A few notes:

1.  Since there are no true hard and fast rules for this dish – except that it must have the tomatoes, olives, and peppers – you can add or remove ingredients as you like.  That being said, I like to think I’ve at least stayed with the spirit of the original recipe.

2.  Some recipes have anchovies, some don’t. If you want to make this dish vegetarian/vegan, certainly omit the anchovies.

3.  It’s also very important to at least roughly chop the olives.  Even if you do buy olives that say “pitted”, pits will happen.  The chopping will help you find any before your guests or family do.

4.  Be sure to taste the finished sauce before adding any additional salt. The olives are in brine, the anchovies are salted, and the capers are either in brine or salt.  While you can rinse the excess saltiness off the olives and capers, some salt will still be there.

5.  Occasionally, I like to use some of the oil from the anchovy jar with the olive oil. I really like anchovies.

The Ingredients

From top left: red pepper flakes, salt-cured capers, olive oil, garlic, anchovies

It’s important to at least roughly chop the olives, even if they’re pitted. Sometimes, pits will still happen. It’s better you find them during prep than your family or guests to find them during dinner.

1 lb. spaghetti

2 tbsp. olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

8 – 10 anchovy filets, minced

1 tsp. red pepper flakes, or to taste

1 28-oz. can chopped tomatoes (with their juice)

1 1/2 c. pitted black or mixed black and green olives, roughly chopped

2 tbsp. capers, rinsed

Salt to taste

Parmesan, fresh grated

1.  Cook the pasta according to the package directions.  Drain and set aside.

2.  In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add the garlic, pepper flakes, and anchovies.  Saute for 1 – 2 minutes.

Sauteing the garlic, red pepper flakes, and anchovies. The anchovies will melt right down. Lovely.

3.  Add the tomatoes, capers, and olives.  Lower the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  You want some of the liquid from the tomatoes to evaporate and the sauce to thicken slightly.

Adding the tomatoes, capers, and olives.

4.  Take the skillet off the heat and toss the spaghetti in the sauce.  Taste for salt (you’ll very likely not need it).

Tossing the pasta with the sauce. Take your time with this step. You want to be sure to coat the pasta and mix in everything as thoroughly as possible.

Serve with a generous helping of Parmesan.

Buon Appetito!

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!