Cookbook:Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

| Cuisine of Italy | Pasta Recipes

Spaghetti alla puttanesca (Italian: "whore's spaghetti") is a spicy, tangy and somewhat salty Italian pasta dish. According to Annarita Cuomo, writer for Il Golfo, a newspaper serving the Italian islands of Ischia and Procida, sugo alla puttanesca was invented in the 1950s by Sandro Petti, co-owner of Rancio Fellone, a famous Ischian restaurant and nightspot. Apparently, when near closing one evening, Petti found a group of hungry friends 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. 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 the dish on his menu as spaghetti alla puttanesca.

Ingredients vary a bit among chefs and cooks according to individual tastes. However, this version (from Lazio) always includes anchovies, while a Neapolitan version never does. An Italian-American version of this dish has emerged that omits butter and oregano but includes onions, anchovies and chili peppers. Shrimp and scallops sautéd in olive oil go beautifully with this dish. If you can't eat shellfish then add canned tuna or broiled salmon to the pasta before coating it with sugo.

Ingredients

 * 600 grams (21 ounces) uncooked spaghetti
 * 50 grams (1.75 ounces) butter
 * 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
 * 115 grams (4 ounces) unsalted anchovy fillets, crushed into a paste (omit anchovies for Neapolitan version)
 * 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
 * 200 grams (7 ounces) black olives, pitted and chopped
 * 2 tablespoons salted capers, washed well and coarsely chopped
 * 1–3 small dried chile peppers, chopped (optional)
 * 900 grams (roughly 2 pounds) plum tomatoes, peeled and puréed
 * 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
 * Salt to taste

Procedure

 * 1) Put the butter, olive oil, garlic, and anchovy paste in a skillet over medium heat.
 * 2) Before the garlic browns, add the olives, capers, tomato sauce, and chili peppers.
 * 3) Add 2–3 pinches of salt, mixing over high heat.
 * 4) Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in salted water (at least 4 quarts of water per pound of spaghetti being cooked). Strain it when it's al dente.
 * 5) Place pasta in a large serving bowl, and coat it with sauce. Then, sprinkle it with chopped parsley.
 * 6) Mix and serve hot.

Notes, tips, and variations

 * Italians customarily do not top this dish with grated cheese.
 * This recipe calls for chili peppers. Choosing the right quantity and type of pepper depends on your personal taste and a bit of trial and error. For this dish, most chefs use peppers in the moderate range of the Scoville scale. Use one or one and a half small peppers the first time you make this recipe. Use one and a half or two small peppers if your first attempt at making sugo leaves you craving more pepper heat. Keep increasing the number of peppers until you get it right. Most chefs stop at three.