Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
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.[1] Apparently, when near closing one evening, Petti found a group of hungry friends sitting at one of his tables. Petti was low on ingredi
- Prep
- 13 min
- Cook
- 29 min
- Total
- 42 min
- Servings
- As written in source
- Difficulty
- Medium
Timings are approximate — worked out from the method, not measured in a test kitchen.
Ingredients
Quantities are retained as written by the source and do not scale automatically. Tap an ingredient to check it off as you go.
Cooking instructions
Procedure
Put the olive oil, garlic, and anchovy paste in a skillet over medium heat.
Procedure
Before the garlic browns, add the olives, capers, tomato sauce, and chile peppers.
Procedure
Add 2–3 pinches of salt, mixing over high heat. Then lower the heat and allow to simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.
Procedure
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.
Procedure
Place pasta in a large serving bowl, and coat it with sauce. Then, sprinkle it with chopped parsley.
Procedure
Mix and serve hot.
Notes, tips, and variations
Italians customarily do not top this dish with grated cheese.
Notes, tips, and variations
This recipe calls for chile 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.
Photo: nishidaryuichi · CC BY 2.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 · Photo source and licence
Wikibooks contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Adapted; quantities retained as written. · Original source
Read it through first
Skim all 8 steps before you start — it is the difference between cooking and firefighting.
Scale it
Use the quantities listed in the original recipe. Adjust them manually if making a different batch size.
Storage
Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
Reheating
Reheat gently with a splash of water in a covered pan, rather than blasting it, so nothing dries out.
Approximate values per serving. Worked out from the ingredient list — treat them as a guide, not a measurement.
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