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Puttanesca Sauce

This is a quick rich sauce that tastes like you spent the entire day making it up! All ingredients are approximate. Feel free to adjust to your taste.
Course Side Dish
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Author Jeannie Sperling (Grandmother's recipe)

Ingredients

  • 1 28 oz can San Marzano tomatoes (very sweet). If you don't have, add a finely grated carrot (but not sugar) to your tomato sauce.
  • 2 Garlic Cloves (minced)
  • 12 Kalamata Olives (pitted and cut in half)
  • 1 Tbsp Capers (rinced and drained)
  • 6-8 Anchovies (packed in oil)
  • ¾-1 tsp Hot pepper Flakes (dried, add to taste)
  • ⅛ cup Fresh Italian Parsley (chopped)
  • Salt (to taste)
  • Pepper (to taste)
  • ¾ lb Spaghetti (thin)

Instructions

Sauce

  • Saute anchovies in olive oil until they begin to melt.
  • Add minced garlic - careful not to burn them.
  • Add olives for a couple of minutes.
  • Add pepper flakes.
  • Add tomatoes broken up (I passed them through a mill from the can right into the pan.)
  • Stir and add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Simmer for a while (I did so for about 45 minutes)
  • Add parsley at the end.

Pasta

  • Boil pasta. I used thin spaghetti.
  • When al dente, I did not drain the pasta, but instead put the pasta directly into the sauce using a spaghetti server.
  • Cook for several minutes so that the pasta absorbs the sauce. I reserved a little bit of the pasta water to use if the mixture gets dry.
  • Even though, in Italy it is HERESY to put grated Parmesan on any pasta dish that has fish, we did. And it was delicious. Enjoy!