I know we've made pasta alla puttanesca before, but somehow it never made it onto the blog, so here it goes!

This recipe is not quick to put together, due to the long simmering stages, but is is easy and all of the ingredients are either shelf-stable or will keep for a long time in the fridge, making it a good "oh no what do we make" pasta dish. The proportions given here are for 450g of dry pasta, but it also works great with fresh pasta; I made it tonight with home-made fettuccine. Long noodly pasta is traditional with this sauce -- spaghetti, linguine, etc.

Compared to the recipe in the book, I use less oil and salt and more anchovies and garlic, but make no other changes.

Pasta alla Puttanesca

The Classic Pasta Cookbook

Ingredients

• 80mL olive oil
• 8 anchovy fillets, chopped
• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 ~750mL tin of diced tomatoes, with juice
• 3mL dried oregano
• 30mL capers
• ~10 black olives, pitted and thinly sliced

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium-low heat. Add the anchovies and cook, stirring occasionally, until the anchovies start to soften and flake, ~10 minutes. (Hazan claims that they will "dissolve". I have never observed this.)
2. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, but without letting it brown, ~30 seconds.
3. Add the tomatoes. Increase heat to medium high and bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium low and simmer until the sauce has reduced and the tomatoes started to break down, 30-40 minutes. (You can fridge the sauce at this point and resume later, if you want.)
4. Bring the water to a boil and begin cooking the pasta.
5. While the pasta cooks, increase heat to medium and stir in the oregano, capers, and olives.
6. Serve with freshly grated parmesan.