Sugo alla puttanesca

This is one of my favorite Italian dishes. I am a sucker for complex salty flavors: the slightly floral pickling of capers, the vinegary brine of green olives and the hidden fatty sharp and "fishy" taste of anchovies. There are times when I crave salt and this dish does it for me. 
 
Apocryphally described as a tomato sauce that was served in a brothel since it was based on the ingredients in their larders, this "in the style of a prostitute" sauce is a tangy, briny creation of the mid-20th century. The salty and fragrant ingredients are typical of Southern Italian cuisine: tomatoes, olive oil, anchovies, olives, capers and garlic.

Wikipedia has a less salacious origin story. More like Buffalo wings, puttanesca came about when hungry people sitting at a popular Italian night spot complained of needing to eat and the restaurant owner not having enough ingredients. "Make any kind of garbage (puttanata)," they retorted and the owner mixed his remaining tomatoes, olive and capers together and served the sauce over spaghetti. The rest, they say, is history.

Serving suggestion

I prefer the Lazian version over the Neapolitan, so my sauce has anchovies. This is traditionally served over spaghetti but any long thin string-like pasta works for this sauce. Also a variation of on this sauce is puttanesca with tuna, which, in turn I have extrapolated into chicken puttanesca, since the sauce is a great liquid for slow cooking meat since it's already delightfully seasoned. (See below.) I haven't tried it yet, but I have some pork chops in the freezer, and I'm going to do that later this week now. 

I craved this sauce this weekend since it's so hearty. Plus it really tasted good this weekend during the blizzard. I filled my plate with pasta and sauce, added freshly cracked pepper and sat on the porch to watch the snow continue to fall after one of my turns to shovel the steps and sidewalk.


Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1 large white or yellow onion, chopped 
• 5-8 cloves garlic, minced 
• ½ tsp kosher salt, or to taste 
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper, or to taste 
• ½ tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste 
• 1 2oz tin of anchovies, mashed 
• 4 28oz cans of tomatoes, crushed and/or diced 
• 1 6oz can tomato paste 
• 1 6oz can black olives, drained and coarsely chopped 
• 1 3oz jar green olives, with brine, coarsely chopped 
• 1 3oz jar capers, with brine

Directions:

1. Heat a large sauce pan over medium heat; add the oil and heat through. Stir in the onion and garlic, cook until tender, about 5 to 8 minutes. 
2. Add the salt, black pepper, red pepper and anchovies, and cook until the aroma is released, about 1 minute more. 
3. Add the tomatoes and paste and bring to a boil. Add the black olives, green olives with brine, capers with brine, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Serve over pasta

Again, I adore this sauce since it is so adaptable into other meals.

For pasta alla puttanesca con tunno: add a can of tuna 5-10 minutes before serving to heat up the tuna and to incorporate the preserving liquid into the sauce.

For pollo alla puttanesca: sear skinless and boneless chicken breast on both sides, cover with 1/2 cup of sauce per 1/4 pound of meat - adding additional water, wine or broth to thin the sauce out if needed, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer, and let simmer for at least an hour.