Spaghetti Puttanesca

The origin of the word 'Puttanesca' is quite unsavoury, unlike the pasta itself and is said to originate in Naples. If you really want to know the etymology of the word you can 'google' it.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
100 gm dry spaghetti (see note 1)	2 anchovies
2 - 3 tbspn olive oil	150 gm chopped tomato (tinned)
5 gm garlic	20 gm capers
15 gm fresh basil	as reqd black pepper
10 gm red chilli	as reqd salt
10 black olives (de-stoned )	as reqd parmesan

Preparation

Finely chop the garlic.
Remove and chop the thick basil stalks.
Remove 3 or 4 basil leaves for garnish and chop the remaining basil leaves.
De-seed and chop the chilli.
Chop the olives.
Chop the anchovies.
Chop the capers.

Cooking - about 9 min

Cook the spaghetti in boiling, salted water until 'al dente' (see note 1).
Heat the oil in a suitable pan and cook the garlic, basil stalks and chilli, stirring regularly over a medium heat for 2 min.
Add the olives, anchovies, tomato, basil leaves, capers, black pepper and salt (remember capers are salty) and simmer, covered, stirring regularly until the pasta is cooked but at least 4 min, adding pasta water as required to maintain the desired sauce consistency.
When the pasta is cooked, drain and add to the sauce, mixing well to coat the pasta with the sauce.

Serving

Serve with a dusting of grated parmesan and the reserved whole basil leaves.

Notes

(1) The pasta needs to be 'al dente' about 9 min (the recommended packet times are usually too long).

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