Sphagetti Puttanesca

I have been subscribing to Flavours Magazine for two years now. Flavours Magazine is published by Star Publications every 2 months. It contains writeups on food, wine, new restaurants worth mentioning, cookbook reviews, and many good recipes. Go here for a list of their past issues.

This recipe is taken from the September-October 2008 issue, titled "everyday pastas". We love pastas, sphagetti especially. My favourite used to be the thin spahgetti also known as angel hair pasta. But not anymore... I discovered Barilla sphagetti no.5 is even better. Cook it slightly over al dente, and the texture becomes soft and chewy (bouncy) :)

This is a very easy sauce to make... and it freezes so well. I made a slight change (adding way more sauce than called for) to the original recipe and ended up with sauce that makes 10 servings :)

Ingredients:

350g sphagetti - cooked to desired bite, then toss with some olive oil

50ml olive oil

1 onion - finely chopped
3 cloves garlic - chopped
1 can tomato paste
100g pitted black olives - chopped or leave whole
1-2 TBSP capers - drained
60g ( 1 small tin) anchovy fillets
3 gm fresh basil leaves - roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste

original recipe doesn't state the size of the tomato paste can ! I didn't realize it until I was ready to cook so I have to put in 3 small tins of tomato paste. That was all I had in my pantry. And, the bottle of anchovy I had didn't come up to a nett weight of 60gm. I was 10gm short.

What to do now:

Simply heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add in the onions and cook till soft and slightly caramelised. Then add the garlic and saute till fragrant.

Add the tomato paste and the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the sauce is thickened and slightly reduced. Make sure to stir once a while so that the bottom doesn't burn.

Ok then came the disaster.... I don't think there was enough sauce for 3 servings. What to do?? should I add some fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes. Luckily I still have a big can of crushed tomatoes in the pantry. No choice then. Gotta add that in. So in went a big can of crushed tomatoes. Hahah.... Continue simmering till thick and season with salt and pepper.

The end result was pretty good. I have never tasted puttanesca sauce anywhere, so I can say this one's a keeper. It would have been lovely with lots of chilli padi, but you know that's not possible with sunny boy around. He loves it btw. Good served with some bread, or salad, or grilled chicken wings, or KFC fried chicken?? Malaysian style la :)

Wanna know what puttanesca mean? Check it out here!