When I was pregnant I was most of the time craving savoury food. Olives, peppers, capers, goat cheese were my obsession. Yesterday when I opened my kitchen cupboard, I noticed I still had quite a few cans for my emergency cravings.
Having yet to decide what to make for dinner, I noticed that some of these ingredients were perfect to prepare one of my favourite simple Italian dishes: “Linguine puttanesca”. Usually you would use Spaghetti with this specific sauce but I just prefer linguine ( you could probably prepare it with vermicelli too -thicker spaghetti- it is really up to you).
If you are in a rush and need a quick dish, you will definitely enjoy this. Here the ingredients for 4 people:
- 400 g Linguine or spaghetti
- Salt
- 3 tablespoons Olive Oil
- 2 large cloves Garlic
- 1 Red chilli de seeded and finely sliced
- 3 tablespoons of Fragata Capers rinsed and drained
- 8 canned Anchovies in oil, drained and finely chopped
- 100 g pitted Fragata Black Olives chopped
- 500 gr of passata (or tin of tomatoes)
- basil leaf shredded
Step-by-step
In a large fryin pan over a medium heat, add chopped garlic and anchovies to the oil and fry for approx 2 minutes, stir occasionally making sure not to burn the garlic
Add in the chilli, capers and olives and continue to cook for a further 3 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Add the passata, stir well and simmer to a gentle heat for 10/15 minutes without the lid.
Once ready, taste the sauce and if needed add some salt (capers, olives and anchovies are quite salty so you probably won’t).
Remove from the heat.
In a large saucepan, cook the pasta in salted boiling water until “al dente”. (To get the “al dente” perfect bite, cook the pasta 1 minute less then the instructions on the packet).
Once the pasta is cooked, drain it. Pour over the puttanesca sauce and stir all together. At the end add some basil leaf shredded.
Serve immediately.
The original recipe calls for chopped parsley but at the last minute I realised that my parsley plant died (!!&!!!?)so I had to use the basil instead and it tasted great too.
Next time on my list, I will make good use of the last can of roasted peppers in oil and I will prepare Crostini with grilled vegetables and goat cheese, topped with a balsamic vinegar reduction… delicious!
I hope you will like it. Go to my facebook page and share your pictures with me!
