Paola’s Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca literally means ‘whore’s pasta’. Many stories exist about the origin of this dish but I don’t think it had anything to do with prostitutes. I believe it was invented in the 1950’s by Sandro Petti in his restaurant O’ Rangio Fellone (The Spider Crab), at the island of Ischia, when a group of hungry friends turned up late after a night of partying and found there wasn’t much food left.
At the chorus of cucina una puttanata qualsiasi!, meaning ‘just cook any crap’ our old Petti put together this delicious dish with what was left in his pantry; olives, capers, tomatoes. A wonderful combination of typical Mediterranean ingredients, to which some people like to add few anchovies, but I prefer it simple the way my mamma does it.
Success depends, as always, on the quality of the ingredients; black olives of Gaeta, from the Italian region of Lazio - but a good substitute is Greek Kalamata olives.
The best capers are Sicilian, but any capers will do as long as they’re preserved in salt. A tin of ‘Cirio’ tomatoes plum is perfect and the best substitute to fresh ‘San Marzano’ tomatoes.
Ingredients
(Serves 4)
400 gr spaghetti or linguine
2 gloves of garlic
5-10 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1 tin chopped tomatoes
100gr black olives
2 tbsp capers, rinsed
A handful of chopped parsley or basil
Directions
Fry the garlic in olive oil until golden. Add the tomatoes, chopped olives and capers and cook gently for about 20 minutes on a medium flame. Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water (a minimum of 500ml for 100gr of pasta) for about 10 minutes, taking care to add a generous handful of rock salt (this might seem excessive but in a few litres of water is actually just right). The pasta is cooked when al dente and you know by tasting it, or you could check the colour in the middle after biting, as a good indicator is seeing a whiter tiny bit in the middle which means it is not completely cooked hence al dente (none of that silly throwing against a wall thing, as generally speaking, if it does stick to the wall, it would mean you could make some glue with it but definitely not eat it!).
Finally, drain, mix with some sauce, then serve in a pretty dish adding the remaining sauce on the top and a generous sprinkle of chopped parsley.
Optimum view while eating spaghetti puttanesca - the island of Ischia
Paola is our in-house cook, here at the House of Talents. She is offering Italian inspired Italian inspired cookery classes for adults and kids.
Times: 3pm on Tuesdays and Fridays (60 mins).
We are asking for a £5 donation for group sessions (with a minimum of 5 people per session).
Please get in touch with Paola to sign up for one of her group classes, or to book a one-to-one session.
Email: paolacimmino3@gmail.com
Instagram: @cucina_cimmino
The House of Talents is home to a community of professional artists, writers, actors, musicians, performers and mental health coaches, who are offering affordable online creative courses for adults and children to learn at home. Classes include portrait painting, performing, public speaking, creative writing, self-publishing, meditation, mindfulness, nutrition and more. 10% of what we earn goes to charity.
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