La Puttanesca.
Notoriously enjoyed all over Italy, this is a quick and simple pasta recipe based on ingredients commonly found in an Italian pantry.
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca.
While some sources will attribute its origins to Rome or the island of Ischia, the dish’s “curiosity-peaking” credentials stem most convincingly from the back streets of Naples and the city’s “appointment houses”, as they are elegantly called in Italy.
Legend frames it as a “reinforcement” dish, habitually whipped up by members of the city’s establishments providing gentlemen’s solace, for their most loyal and enduring clients. Nomen est omen: an easy, mightily satisfying late-night do, needing no prior preparation or notice. (The ladies themselves sought solace in sturdier creature comforts: some first-hand accounts recount that the keenest query on these streets of Naples used to be: “tieni una macchina o una cinquecento?”: “Do you have a car, or a (Fiat) 500?” The two were clearly not the same.)
When prepared with good quality ingredients - the capers are crucial - this is an incredibly flavourful and pleasing plate of pasta. A great, year-round fallback, the fresh tomatoes can be substituted for passata in the winter months, though nothing beats the sweetness of the puttanesca when made with juicy, over-ripe, end-of-summer tomatoes. An even lighter, summer version can be made without the anchovies, with some good quality, tinned tuna in olive oil mixed through at the end.
In Italy still today often enjoyed late at night, this is a pasta dish that regularly makes appearances at the irresistible Spaghettata di Mezzanotte: the “midnight spaghetti”, a more lyrical version of the “midnight snack”.
It also often enters another repertoire: La Cucina degli Avanzi, or the Leftover Kitchen, a very old and traditional practice of transforming leftovers into other dishes for subsequent mealtimes. Born not only of the necessity to be frugal with food and minimise wastage, this is a practice characteristic of the generous, open-armed Southern Italian culture where food is always prepared in abundance, for any unplanned visitors or unaccounted appetites. It is also first and foremost an efficient, time-saving way of cooking: in bulk, and a clever way to make food and fuel go a longer way.
Leftover pastas in Southern Italy are often fried in a pan the next day, with the addition of egg or cheese, forming a type of frittata. Different recipes have different recommended ways of being repurposed, with the puttanesca’s next day incarnation being as thrifty as can be: the pasta is cooked with no additions, only in a small amount of olive oil.
Fried until crispy on both sides, the result is a pasta cake with crispy edges on the outside and still-goey spaghtetti on the inside. Loosely known as “scammaro”, this is a simple, dish with noble origins, invented by a Duke during the reign of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies as a “lean” day dish. The pasta should be fried until blistered on both sides and enjoyed at room temperature.
The addition of lard – known as strutto in Italy – in this recipe for puttanesca is an much-used trick of the traditional, Southern Italian kitchen. Adding an extra smoky and savoury layer to dishes, as well as some additional fats, it was a way of contributing animal protein to a diet that was usually poor of meat. It can be substituted for goosefat or duckfat, but should only be used if good quality.
RECIPE.
Ingredients:
Serves 4
Salted Capers, a small handful (c. 50g)
Black Olives, a small handful (c. 100g) – traditionally “Gaeta”
Anchovies, 4-6
Garlic, 2 medium cloves
A fresh red chilli or dried chilli flakes, to taste
Parsley, a small bunch
Vine tomatoes, a punnet (c. 500g)
Spaghetti, 350g
Extra virgin olive oil
Lard, very high quality
Salt
1. Set a pan of water to boil for the pasta, allowing 1 litre per 100g of pasta.
2. As soon as it starts to boil, add the tomatoes for a couple of minutes to blanch, then take out with a slotted spoon and leave to cool.
3. Peel and finely chop the garlic.
4. Chop half of the capers into rough pieces.
5. If using a fresh chilli, cut it open lengthways, deseed and chop finely. (If using small Sicilian red chillies, about half of one should be enough. For dried chilli about half of generous teaspoon should be enough, but always taste for both scenarios as spicyness varies.)
6. Peel the tomatoes with your hands, then break them up into small pieces, taking out and discarding the seeds. Set aside the tomato pulps.
7. Heat a pan with enough olive oil to coat the bottom and if you have some at hand, a small amount of very good quality animal fat.
8. Add the garlic, chilli and anchovies to the pan, coat in olive oil and start to break up the anchovies with a wooden spoon. The anchovies will start to melt and disintegrate into the oil. As soon as the garlic starts to colour add the capers and olives and continue to brown for about five minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally.
9. Add the tomatoes to the pan, cover and cook over a low heat for fifteen minutes.
10. About five minutes in, start to cook the spaghetti in the pan of water you cooked the tomatoes in.
11. Finely chop the parsley.
12. Towards the end the pasta cooking time (see packet instructions), scoop out a few table spoons of pasta cooking water into the tomato sauce and mix. Taste the seasoning and add some salt if necessary. The mixture shouldn’t be too dry nor too wet.
13. Scoop out some of the pasta cooking water using a mug, from the top of the pan (this is where the starch gathers) and reserve. Drain the pasta two minutes before the packet instructions, and add to the pan with the sauce, mixing thoroughly.
14. Cook the pasta over a medium heat for one minute, adding extra cooking water if it feels too dry. Finish the cooking of the pasta in the pan, until “al dente”.
15. Finally check the seasoning of the pasta, and the consistency of the sauce, which needs to be juicy, as it will continue to dry as soon as served, but flavourful, so be careful not to dilute too much with cooking water.
16. Finally, complete with a last drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and the chopped parsley and serve immediately.
“RECIPE” for Scammaro’.
Add a small amount of olive oil to a frying pan and heat up on a medium heat.
Add the spaghetti to the pan and with the back of a wooden spoon or spatula squish down. Fry for about 7-10 minutes, until browned and crispy. Don’t be afraid if it looks dark – the spaghetti needs to get blistered around the edges.
3. Then with the help of a lid, flip the spaghetti cake over: cover the pan, turn upside down onto the lid, take the pan off and slide back into the fyring pan.
4. Continue to fry, for another 3-4 minutes.
5. Turn out onto a plate and serve.
The scamarro’ should be crispy on the outside, and still soft on the inside. This fried pasta cake is fairly on the thin size, anywhere between 2-4cm tall according to personal preference so should be made in an accordingly sized sauce pan, depending on the amount of spaghetti frying.
This is best enjoyed at room temperature, but should be eaten promptly, as it will loose its crispyness if left too long.
