The Cheap-Ass Gourmet – Puttanesca
Note: The Cheap-Ass Gourmet is a cooking series we recently started doing here at the League. Each recipe in the series has three things in common: each is perfect for a person on a budget, each is well-suited for those who say “But I don’t know how to cook!,” and each is delicious. A listing of previous Cheap-Ass Gourmet Posts can be found at the bottom of this one.
I got an email this morning reminding me that it’s been a while since I did a Cheap-Ass Gourmet post, so I decided to do one on the simplest, cheapest, most versatile staple in the Kelly household: Puttanesca. As a matter of fact, puttanesca is such a versatile dish that it feels a little weird writing down a “recipe” for it.
Puttanesca appears to have been developed in Italy in the early twentieth century, and was known there as “whore’s pasta.” (I’ve been told that a more accurate 21st century translation would be “slut’s pasta.”) I am unsure if the name was originally meant to be derogatory because it was something more likely to be made by poorer women, or if it was meant to be deliciously provocative because its flavors are spicy, sensual and wonderfully indulgent. You can use fresh ingredients, canned ingredients, items from the most upscale farmers markets and leftovers from the fridge. It can be vegetarian, vegan or a carnivore’s delight. In fact, when asked by friends what ingredients they should put in their puttanesca, my usual response is: “I don’t know – whatcha got?”
It’s also unbelievably easy. I can make it in the time it takes to boil pasta.
I’ll start out here with the base recipe I use, and then give a few common variations from my own kitchen. More than any recipe I’ve ever posted here, this is one where you should feel free to go as wild as you wish in the kitchen. (Maybe that’s where the name comes from – being a bit slutty and uninhibited with your food?) That being said I will offer a few notes of advice:
1. I always say this, but use whole wheat pasta rather than regular white pasta. It’s far healthier, and the texture is firmer. And if you’ve never had whole wheat pasta, this is a great dish to use as an introduction: the flavors in the dish are bold, so the difference in pasta will be less noticeable to you than they might in, say, spaghetti with red sauce.
2. If at all possible, use fresh basil leaves rather than dried. For those of you new to cooking, you’ll find them in the produce department rather than the spice aisle.
3. If you’ve taken my earlier advice and invested in a more expensive olive oil, don’t use it with this recipe – the bold flavors of the sauce can drown out the subtle hints of expensive oils. Use the cheap stuff.
4. With this recipe, take the amount of ingredients with a grain of salt – including the salt. In fact, if you decide to add capers, olives, or tapenade to your puttanesca you might do what I do and leave the salt out altogether.
Recipe(s) after the jump.
The Cheap-Ass Gourmet Basic No-Frills Puttanesca
Ingredients
1/2 Package Whole Wheat Penne Pasta (cost: $1.48)
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil (cost: $0.40)
2-4 Cloves Garlic, diced or crushed (cost: $0.15)
2 Teaspoons Dried Oregano (cost: $0.20)
2 Teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes, or more if you like your dishes spicier (cost: $0.15)
1 Fifteen Ounce Can Tomatoes; be sure to look at the label and buy a kind that does not have added ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup (cost: $1.49)
1/4 Cup Chopped Fresh Basil Leaves (cost: $1.00)
Directions
1. Fill a pot with enough water to boil the pasta, put on the stove over high heat. When it comes to boil, put in pasta and cook for the amount of time stated on the package. (Usually about 9 minutes.) When done, drain the pasta.
2. While the water is coming to boil, heat a large pan on medium. Add the olive oil; swirl it around until the entire surface is covered.
3. Add the garlic. Stir until the color just starts to darken, about a minute or two.
3. Add the oregano and red pepper flakes. Stir for a minute of two.
4. Add the tomatoes. Stir until the tomatoes are thoroughly mixed with the spice mixture, then set the stove on low. Cover until the pasta is done and drained.
5. After the pasta is drained, toss it together with the sauce and the chopped basil leaves. Serve.
Total time from start to finish: 10-20 minutes
Serves: 4
Cost per serving: $1.21
Pretty easy and cheap, right? Now comes the fun part: making it even better.
Meat lovers can add whatever kind of meat they like, especially leftover meats like chicken, pork or beef. My favorite is to add spicy Italian chicken sausage. When I do this, I brown the sausage in the large pan first and then set the cooked meat aside in a bowl. (That way the juices from the sausage flavor everything else from the beginning.) I then throw the sausage back in the sauce right before I cover and simmer it.
Chopped olives are wonderful, as are capers. To save time, I sometimes just throw in a spoonful of olive tapenade. Sun-dried tomatoes are also a good add.
Bell peppers are a natural add, as are zucchini and yellow squash. We often have left over roasted cauliflower and broccoli – those are outstanding in puttanesca. If it’s August and fresh tomato season, adding freshly chopped heirlooms when you toss with the pasta creates a truly sublime dish.
Cheeseheads can also have their way with puttanesca. Fresh mozzarella is commonly added, as of course is asiago or parmesan. Goat cheese and feta are less common, but still yummy. I have even heard of people adding cheddar (which I just can’t bring myself to try). If you add cheese, add it at the very end, if not at the table.
Puttanesca, in other words, can be as simple or as robust as you wish. When I make it, I almost always add sausage and several vegetables, and don’t bother making anything else – it’s an entire meal. Bonus: Puttanesca is often better tasting as leftovers than it is on the night you make it.
UPDATE: My wife just read this, and informed me that it is her understanding that the dish was called “whore’s pasta” because it could be made quickly in-between “tricks.”
Her word.
Previous Cheap-Ass Gourmet Posts:
Roast Chicken with Roasted Potatoes and Greens
Enchiladas with Simple Homemade Sauce
Thai Coconut & Lemongrass Soup
The Cheap-Ass Gourmet Cookbook Shelf
Not Cheap-Ass, But Worth Doing for Summer:
Puttanesca appears to have been developed in Italy in the early twentieth century, and was known there as “whore’s pasta.” (I’ve been told that a more accurate 21st century translation would be “slut’s pasta.”)
That’s just a fluke.Report
Several years ago, I accompanied my sweetie on a business trip to Miami Beach. We were stuck on the hotel (thankfully on the beach) for several days. But one evening, there was a respite, and we went into Coconut Grove, deciding to follow our noses to a non-hotel meal.
First thing out of the car was a most amazing aroma of bread baking and garlic goldening and basil; but no, we had to walk around sniffing everywhere before selecting. We wound up back at the car, at a small Italian restaurant where those smells had their cooking.
I had puttanesca there that night; much as you’ve described above. To the very hot pasta, just before serving, they stirred in the fresh basil chiffonade, amazingly fresh mozzarella (so fresh it tore instead of sliced) and very cold, and at table, a sprinkling of parmasen. The memory of that hot pasta combined with the fresh basil and cold cheese is still outstanding.
Basil chiffonade is a wonderful thing. When bruised or frosted, fresh basil blackens, and quickly. Chiffonade seems to deter the blackening, at least for a while, while properly bruising the basil to release its aromatic oils. And it’s ever so easy to make.
First, on the selection and care of fresh basil: at market, select basil that looks fresh and green, no wilt, no black. Or grow some on your windowsill, patio, porch, or fire escape. Don’t refrigerate it. If the bunch isn’t in one of those dreaded plastic coffins they use for fresh herbs, but is a real bunch, trim the bottoms of the stems and stand it in some water (not covering any of the leaves, just the stem bottoms,) until you’re preparing to cook. When you put the water on, put the basil in a salad spinner or bowl of cold water, this will help refresh it and wash it. Change the water a few times if there’s any sand or dirt. Then spin it dry (or shake it out), and pick the big leaves off. Throw the small ones in your salad, if you’re having one, or in the puttanesca whole. Lay the big leaves one atop another, pointed ends in one direction, stem-ends the other. Just before serving, roll the pile of leaves up like a cigar, so that the vein down the center of the leaves lies perpendicular to the direction you’re rolling. Take a sharp knife, and slice the roll into thin slices, the thinner the better. And you have basil chiffonade for your pasta.
And if you find the basil motherlode at your local farmer’s market or garden, save it for winter. Wash, as above, remove the leaves from the stems, and put them in your food processor. Drizzle just enough olive oil in it to make a smooth paste. Put this in an ice-cube tray, filling each cube about 2/3 full (they’ll expand in the freezer, and be difficult to get out if you fill them all the way), cover with a layer of plastic to seal, and freeze. Next day, remove them from the tray and store them in a heavy-duty freezer bag. A trick on defrosting: put a single cube (or two) in a small zip-lock bag, squeeze out as much air as possible, and put it in a bowl of cold water; place another bowl, pot lid or whatever on top to weight it down and submerge it. In about an hour, you’ll have that fresh basil paste ready to stir into a dish like puttanesca. For a longer-cooked sauce or soup, jut throw the cube in the pot.
And please, if you’ve got a place where you get about 4 hours of sun a day, try growing your own. Water it often, pinch the tops back often (this makes it branch, and greatly increases your supply of basil,) and give it little compost tea once in a while; because plants like to eat, too.Report
Ugh:
Just before serving, roll the pile of leaves up like a cigar, so that the vein down the center of the leaves lies perpendicular to the direction you’re rolling.
This is wrong; migraine. Roll the leaves side to side, so that the vein goes from one end of the roll to the other; this is crucial to not having the basil blacken.Report
This was awesome, z.Report
This place smelled so good I passed on the bounty of Cuban food Coconut Grove offers. I still wonder at this. Rare has been a restaurants pull on my nose.Report
Would this go good with a pimp cocktail or a pimp juice cocktail (made with Pimp Juice energy drink and vodka)?Report
Obligatory:
http://xkcd.com/37/Report
I recall reading something here you did on puttanesca before, no?Report
No, I used to do a series called Bloggy Puttanesca, which was a bunch of tiny pieces in one post.Report
My understanding of the name is similar to your wife’s. (I have heard another explanation that is sufficiently unsavory as to preclude further description.)
I love puttanesca. Love it. But the Better Half does not, and so I pretty much never make it.
My version is super simple. Crush and mince a ton of garlic. Slice some kalamata olives and dice up some anchovies. Cook garlic as per your instructions. Add olive and anchovies, plus a liberal splash of red wine. Toss in a jar of capers. Cook about ten minutes.
Enjoy.Report
Ooo, anchovies! How did I forget to list achovies? Anchovies are awesome in puttanesca.Report
Except for the anchovies, I love this version — interesting, no tomatoes, or did you forget them? I like the no tomatoes variation.
If you just can’t bear to leave the tomatoes out and those heirloom varieties are plentiful, a big one, a juicy one, diced and stirred in cold just before serving. Large black or yellow tomatoes slicing tomatoes (I’d actually be color squeamish about mixing them together) work nicely here.
I have yet to find a suitable umami alternative to anchovies; I’m allergic.Report
Whoops. I left them out by accident.Report
capers = winReport
It would never even have occurred to me to make puttanesca without olives. Anchovies, now that’s a great addition. I already put anchovy in my bolognese.Report
My girlfriend makes spaghetti and penne alla puttanesca, but none of my Italian relatives do. I assume this is because they or their parents came over before puttanesca became popular in the 60s or 70s. Yours sounds good though. Can I come over?
Also, “puttana” can mean “whore” or “prostitute” or any other name for women who have sex for money, but by the time this dish came about, it would have been a slur that has a pretty broad meaning, all related to women, but not necessarily to sex. It could still mean whore, it could mean slut, or it could be an Italian equivalent of “bitch” in English (my uncle, in his… weaker moments, has been known to call someone a “figlio di puttana”).Report
“Figlio di puttana” are fighting words.
Your comment is revealing though: the Italians’ much-vaunted culinary canon is in fact dynamic, as dynamic as any other ethnic cuisine’s. Italians only ACT like their food has been around forever.Report
Collard Greens have! 😉
(and that, my friend, is a comment on the culinary magpie that is America).Report
FWIW, Ronzoni’s line of “Smart Taste” pasta is much healthier than regular pasta but closer to the taste/texture/consistency than whole wheat. Perhaps there is some sort of voodoo magic or poisonous chemical they use to achieve this, but I use it in most of my dishes at this point. Worth checking out.Report