How to Make Pasta Puttanesca

Hey everybody .

This is Kenji Lopez alt from serious eats .

And today I'm showing you how to make spaghetti a lautan , which is a relatively modern pasta dish dating from around the mid 20 th century .

And coming from Southern Italy , it's one of those pasta dishes where it takes about the same amount of time to build the sauce as it does to boil the pasta , which makes it an ideal dish for a week night meal or for an easy weekend .

It's only got a few ingredients and all of them are really strongly flavored .

So I suggest you make this when everybody's on board or when you're by yourself .

You ready .

The great thing about is that it's made with inexpensive ingredients that store well , in the pantry like garlic anchovies , capers , olives , canned tomatoes and pasta to start place a half pound of pasta in a skillet or sauce pan and cover it with water .

The water doesn't need to be boiling .

Your pasta is gonna cook just fine either way , add a big pinch of salt , set it over high heat and cook stirring a couple of times until the pasta is just shy of al dente .

In the meantime , add a big glug of extra virgin olive oil to another skillet or sauce pan .

We're talking about a quarter of a cup to start add four sliced cloves of garlic .

About six finely minced anchovy filets and a big pinch of red pepper flakes .

Eat the mixture gently over medium heat , stirring occasionally until the garlic is pale golden brown .

The idea is to infuse the oil with flavor and to slowly soften the garlic without creating any bitter overcooked notes .

This takes about five minutes .

Now add a quarter cup each of chopped capers and black olives and stir them into the mixture for the tomatoes .

I don't like the texture of diced tomatoes which are set with calcium chloride gives them an unnatural firmness .

I prefer to use whole peeled tomatoes that I cut down to the right size myself but not like that like this , squeezing the tomatoes through your fingers is faster , less messy , gives you more interesting texture and is way more fun .

Once the olives and capers are added in , go ahead and add a cup of those squished up , canned tomatoes and stir to combine , bring it to a simmer and then check on that pasta .

By this point .

It should be just shy of Al Dente which like James bond to the villain in every 007 movie is exactly where we want it .

We've got our sauce and we've got our pasta .

We've got to get these two to get it .

I use a pair of tongs to make the introduction , lifting the pasta straight out of the water without bothering to strain it .

The neat thing about finishing the pasta in the sauce is that the sauce slows down the speed at which the pasta cooks giving you a wider window of time between perfectly al dente and overly soft .

It's actually a good thing to skip draining the pasta because the starchy pasta water helps the sauce emulsify and coat the strands .

I like to finish the dish with a little chopped parsley , some fresh olive oil and a couple more splashes of pasta water to adjust the texture .

A vigorous boil will help the sauce turn creamy .

Some purists may claim that cheese has no place in Puttanesca .

I say that there's a seat reserved at the table for cheese in every conceivable gathering , especially when I'm also invited .