Recipe of the Week

[fabrisse]

Puttanesca Sauce

The original meaning of slut was a descriptive term for a poor housekeeper. As a matter of fact, the term "slut's wool" was still in use in rural Virginia when I was in my teens rather than "dust bunny."

I mention this because the idea behind "Whore's Pasta," a literal translation of Puttanesca, is that the woman in question will only have the bare essentials in the pantry through laziness and poor housekeeping. Although I think if she's good at her work, she only has the bare essentials through lack of time.

If you order spaghetti Puttanesca in a restaurant, it will have capers, olives, and, usually anchovies in a tomato based sauce. When I think of puttanesca sauce, the huge hit of salty richness from those three ingredients is my first image.

However, the point of puttanesca is that it shouldn't require anything beyond olive oil, tomatoes (fresh or tinned), and either garlic or onion. Everything else is what's in your pantry.

Me, I love olives. eanja doesn't care for them, so when I made puttanesca at her place it was olive free. I have friends who hate anchovies. I'll leave it out in that case. If I don't have an onion, I'll just use garlic and vice-versa. On the other hand, I miss eanja's fresh herbs. I always just picked what ever looked or smelled particularly good.

So here's my basic recipe for puttanesca. Modify it to your heart's content.

Two (or more) Tablespoons of olive oil
1 or more Tablespoons of fresh herbs (I like oregano and rosemary, but I've used thyme and/or savory as well. Sage will work.) or 1 or more teaspoons of dried herbs (same list)
1 hot pepper (optional) -- use ground black pepper if you omit this.
1 onion -- I usually embrace the laziness factor and leave the chunks relatively large
1 or 2 cloves of garlic -- again, I usually just slice it
1 Bay leaf -- Told you, I liked the flavor

Put all of the above ingredients into a pan over medium heat to saute the onions to transparency. Stir occasionally and adjust the heat if necessary.

Once the onions are soft add:
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
1 anchovy or 1 teaspoon of anchovy paste

Stir these in until the anchovy begins to break up and the tomato paste is well distributed.

Add:
One can of tomatoes, chopped, diced, or crushed preferred. Whole is fine if that's what you have.
Clean the can with 1/2 cup of red wine.
Add a small can of sliced black olives or 1/2 cup of whole olives (preferably pitted). Green olives or a mix are also fine.
1 Tablespoon (or more) of capers -- salted are the best, I usually have the more common pickled ones in my fridge.

Stir it all together; put on a lid, and reduce the heat to a simmer.

If you put on water for boiling pasta (I like spaghetti, capellini, or linguine, but really, any pasta is fine. I also prefer whole wheat.) as soon as you begin the sauce preparation, you can have the whole meal ready as soon as the pasta is finished.

Or you can be more traditional and just let the sauce stay on a low simmer for several hours.

The sauce is excellent either way.