Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
As the name suggests in Italian Spaghetti alla Puttanesca lititerally means “Spaghetti a la Whore”! Was this dish then created to allow ladies of the night to have a quick meal in between jobs? There are a lot of stories as to how Spaghetti alla Puttanesca got its name, but one of the most common is that it was a dish that the working girls could quickly prepare between customers. Another version is that Spaghetti alla Puttanesca was cooked in brothels so customers would be lured in by the enticing aromas.
According to Annarita Cuomo, writer for Il Golfo, a daily 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. In the February 17th, 2005 edition of the newspaper,Il Golfo, Cuomo says the moment of inspiration came, when near closing one evening, Petti found a group of customers sitting at one of his tables. Petti only had a few ingredients and told the customers that he didn’t have enough to make them a meal. Subsequently they complained that it was late and they were hungry. And insisted that he make any kind of garbage. In this usage, puttanata is an Italian noun meaning something worthless. It derives from the Italian word for whore, puttana.
At the time, Petti had nothing more than four tomatoes, two olives and some capers, which are the basic ingredients for the sauce. “So I used them to make the sauce for the spaghetti,” Petti told Cuomo.
Later, Petti included this dish on his menu as “Spaghetti alla Puttanesca”.
The ingredients suggest the dish comes from southern Italy in particular the state of Campania but lazio also claims the recipe too. The sauce became popular in the 1960s, according to the Professional Union of Italian Pasta Makers. The 1971 edition of the Cucchiaio d’argento (The Silver Spoon), one of Italy’s most prominent cookbooks, has no recipe with this name at all!
So there you have it!
I first heard of this through watching Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes and thought it looks good enough to try, plus I love the simple ingredients…my wife not!
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 500g bucatini, linguine, spaghetti or similar
- 500g cherry tomatoes
- 100g anchovy fillets (salted or in oil)
- 100g good quality olives, rinsed. The recipe calls for Gaeta olives, which of course can be green or black. You can leave them whole or stone them and roughly chop. I prefer half and half.
- 50g capers, rinsed and roughly chopped. The recipe doesn’t stipulate salted or in brine. I prefer the salted variety
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 sprig rosemary, leaves finely chopped
- 4 sage leaves, shredded thinly
- 50g or a good handful of chopped fresh oregano
- 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
- 1 chilli or a good pinch of chili flakes)
- Chopped parsley to garnish
Prepearation method:
Bring a large pot of well salted water to the boil for the pasta.
Now squeeze the tomatoes into the sink to get rid of most of the seeds and juice, then cut them in half.
Heat the olive oil in a pan with the garlic, rosemary and sage and cook gently for about 1 minute without browning.
Add the chili, tomatoes, capers, olives, anchovies, oregano and some black pepper and leave to simmer gently for 10 minutes.
Now add the pasta to the pan of boiling water and cook for about 7 minutes or until al dente.
Drain the pasta and tip it into a large warmed serving bowl. Pour over the sauce, add the chopped parsley and toss together well. Serve straight away, with plenty of red wine.
Enjoy!