Putanesca
This is the best putanesca recipe Ive used. It's been perfected over years of testing! For veggies you can leave out the pancetta. You can use peeled, tinned tomatoes if you want to go quick on this, but if you really want the best texture and real taste it's best to flash boil the best tomatoes you can find and then skin and de-seed them. It's a great sauce for freezing any leftover sauce.
This is the best putanesca recipe Ive used. It's been perfected over years of testing! For veggies you can leave out the pancetta. You can use peeled, tinned tomatoes if you want to go quick on this, but if you really want the best texture and real taste it's best to flash boil the best tomatoes you can find and then skin and de-seed them. It's a great sauce for freezing any leftover sauce.
- olive oil
- 150 grams butter
- parmesan
- fresh tomatoes (skin removed) blanched and deseed
- tinned tomatoes (not much of these) good quality
- pitted black olives
- 2 tsp capers (don't go ov
- 5 cloves garlic as much as you like - i use about 5 clov
- 6 shallots
- 1 pancetta cubed pancetta is the easiest and most
- 6 anchovies
- fresh thyme and basil
- 1 chillies (up to 2) not the hottest ones - just medium
- spagetti or penne the goods stuff. good dried p
- 1 and a lot of love
- Carbohydrate 5.57388889607444 g
- Cholesterol 59.8405364508643 mg
- Fat 18.6422854372268 g
- Fiber 0.331183339218299 g
- Protein 7.21016594322123 g
- Saturated Fat 10.6668855327844 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (97g)
- Sodium 199.301393049224 mg
- Sugar 5.24270555685614 g
- Trans Fat 1.51735834488261 g
- Calories 215 calories
Step-by-step
- Flash boil the tomatoes by boiling a big saucepan of salted water. Once boiling throw the toms in for about 3-4 mins until you start to see the skins cracking. Then drain and fill up the pan with cold water and throw some ice in there too to stop them cooking.
- Chop the shallotts, deseed and chop the chillies, chop the garlic. If the pancetta's not cubed, dice that up too.
- Now go back to the tomatoes. Have a big chopping board and a collander to hand. The skins should fall off the tomatoes, if it doesn't just chop in half and peel off. Once the tomatoes are in half and without skin, just push your thumb through to get rid of all the seeds - do this over the collander as it's a bit messy. Once you have all the half tomatoes, de-skined and seeded roughly shop them on your big board.
- Add some butter to a big pan (at least as big as the one you boiled the tomatoes in), throw in the shallots, & once browned add the garlic and anchovies. The anchovies will start to dissolve, then add the pancetta and cook through (3-4 mins). Chuck in the chiiles once the pancetta's cooked through and then throw in your rough chopped tomatoes.
- Add one tin of the best tinned, peeled tomatoes you can find. If they're not chopped, chop them in the tin by running a sharp knife through the tin a few times. Then add a couple of teaspoons of good capers - probably about 20-25 in all. Cut the pitted olives in half and add these. I don't always add olives but it's great if you do. Kalamatta are best.
- Stir and season with salt & pepper to taste. Then peel some leaves off the thyme (if you have fresh - if not, just a few generous pinches). Cover and leave the sauce to simmer for half an hour. You'll see it reduce nicely into a nice thick sauce. About 10 minutes before serving peel a handfull of basil leaves, roughly chop, add and stir through. Cook your pasta, drain. Put the pasta back in the pan with a little olive oil, add a big dollop of sauce and then toss about for a minute before serving with a lovely clump of freshly grated parmesan. YUM!
Classic marinara relies on long, slow simmering to sweeten raw acidity, but puttanesca bypasses that patience by building flavor through concentrated umami agents. Anchovies dissolve entirely into hot fat during the initial sauté, releasing inosine monophosphate that synergizes with the free glutamates present in garlic, parmesan, and ripe tomatoes to multiply savory depth rather than simply adding fishy flavor. Blanching fresh tomatoes for three to four minutes until micro-fissures form in the skin allows for rapid thermal peeling without cooking the flesh prematurely, preserving bright fruitiness that tinned varieties alone cannot provide. Combining fresh produce with a single can of high-quality preserved tomatoes bridges the gap between seasonal brightness and year-round convenience, yielding a balanced base liquid for the sauce. Salt-cured capers and pitted olives contribute sharp sodium and volatile oils that cut through the rich butter and pancetta fat. Omitting the pancetta alters the emulsion, requiring an extra splash of olive oil or pasta cooking water to achieve the proper gloss and cling on extruded starch. Simmering the combined mixture for thirty minutes evaporates excess water content, concentrating the sugars and organic acids until the sauce coats the back of a spoon cleanly. Tossing the drained pasta directly into the warm sauce pan with a starchy cooking liquid finish forces the sauce to emulsify into the noodles instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl.
