La Puttanesca

Name: La Puttanesca (Puttanesca Pasta)
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 90 ml/6 tbsp dry white wine; 3 anchovy fillets (either salted or canned in oil), rinsed and patted dry on kitchen paper; 5 ml/1 tsp dried oregano; 25 ml/1 ½ tbsp salted capers, rinsed, dried and chopped; a handful of pitted black olives; 300 g/11 oz passata/bottled strained tomatoes or canned chopped tomatoes; sea salt and ground black pepper; 400 g/14 oz penne or spaghetti; 1-3 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed; 120 ml/4 fl oz/½ cup extra virgin olive oil; 30 ml/2 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley; 1-3 small dried red chillies, according to taste, finely chopped

Puttanesca Pasta

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Italian Regional Cookbook

By Valentina Harris

Published 2017

About

This sauce is named after the famous Roman ‘ladies of the night’, who are as strident, garish and obvious as the bold flavours of this sauce. The key here is that all the ingredients should sing out so that you can taste each one individually as well as blending beautifully to create the overall taste of the sauce. It is crucial not to add the olives until the end of cooking, and not to omit the dried oregano, which is absolutely essential for the flavour.