The Shoreline Chef’s Pasta Puttanesca

One of my favorite quick dinners is the infamous pasta puttanesca. It does not mean your mother’s pasta. It is a dinner that can be put together in the time it takes to cook the pasta.
Ingredients: serves 4
1. 1 ½ lbs of dried pasta of your choice. Usually linguine, or spaghetti, but my favorite is Ronzoni perciatelli. It looks like thick spaghetti but has a hole thru the middle.
2. 5 or 6 garlic cloves sliced into very thin slices (like in goodfellas)
3. 1 small onion thinly sliced
4. ½ c pitted kalamata olives chopped up a bit. Not the rubber black ones in the can
5. olive oil ( if I every say evoo please kill me)
6. 1 28oz plus 1 14oz can of diced not crushed tomatoes
7. 3 or 4 anchovy fillets in oil
8. 2 tbsp capers rinsed
9. fresh parsley and fresh basil
10. Red crushed pepper flakes
11. Freshly grated Parmigianino or pecorino Romano cheese.
OK lets go !
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil with a hand full of kosher salt. If it seems like to much salt it is the right amount. The salt is absorbed into the pasta and flavors it during the cooking process. When water boils add the pasta and cook it until is still pretty hard in the middle. It is an art to know when it is al dente, but you will learn. If your sauce is not finished when the pasta is al dente dump it in ice water to shocked it cold. Drain and set aside.
2. Lets make the sauce… In a large sauté pan that will eventually hold all the cooked pasta heat up about 4 tbsp of olive oil. When it is hot but not smoking dump in the onion, anchovy, crushed red pepper flakes, and the garlic. Mash everything together, make sure the anchovy get mashed up pretty well. Salt and pepper to taste. Do not let the garlic burn or you will have to throw it out and start again. Be careful with the salt because the capers, anchovies, and the olive are a bit salty.
3. Now throw in the tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Turn the heat up and add the capers and chopped olives. Get the whole thing bubbling hot.
4. Now drain the pasta and throw it into the pan. Here is where the magic happens. The pasta is not cooked and it is looking for more liquid to absorb. There is no water in that pot so guess what!! It is going to absorb the delicious tomato sauce right into the pasta itself. Cook this shaking and stirring the pan for a couple of minutes. Taste the pasta. It should cook thru but not mushy. This is how you get the very flavorful pasta dishes in great Italian restaurants
5. Plate this magnificent dish of flavors and hit it with a little fresh chopped parley, a little fresh basil, and some freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese. If you us the stuff in a can… you can’t have any more of my recipes