“PUTTANESCA” (Tart's Spaghetti)

Sometimes it can get frustrating when you are teaching someone how to cook, as they can often wander off to collect the next ingredient and not watch what they are cooking. This recepie has a lot of different chopped ingredients, so we prepared all of the things that we needed  and set up the Mise en place before Coen began any of the cooking. This pasta dish is a great quick meal as we always have the ingredients on hand.

225-275 grams of spaghetti (depending on how hungry you are)
Salt.

FOR THE SAUCE:
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
50 g drained anchovies
175g pitted kalamata olives chopped
1 fresh red chili finely chopped
1 heaped tablespoon drained capers
450g tin of chopped tomatoes in juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly milled black pepper

TO GARNISH:
Torn fresh basil
Lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese


METHOD:
To make the sauce, heat the oil in a medium saucepan, then add the garlic, chili and basil taking care not to burn the garlic. Add all other sauce ingredients along with a little pepper- but no salt yet because of the anchovies.

Turn the heat to low and let the sauce simmer very gently uncovered for 40 minutes, by which time it will have reduced to a rich thick sauce.
Check the seasoning and add salt if desired.

While the sauce is cooking, take your largest saucepan and fill with at least 2and 1/4 liters of water and bring up to a gentle simmer. Add the salt and about 8 minutes before the sauce is ready add the spaghetti to the water. Stir around well to avoid the pasta sticking together. Cook for around 8 minutes or till ‘al dente’
Drain pasta into a colander and return it to the saucepan presto pronto, and toss the sauce through the pasta, adding the basil garnish.

Serve in warm bowls and garnish with the freshly grated Parmesan.

If you are a strict vegetarian, replace the anchovies with another heaped tablespoon of capers.


From Delia Smith's Summer Collection, Page 113.