This recipe comes from Sam Sifton’s superior “Red Book” of no-measurement recipes. You can vary the amount of ingredients based on personal taste, as long as you include a bit of each one. It was delicious.
Ingredients:
- Capers (I used a jar, drained)
- Whole black olives (I used two cans, drained)
- Chili-garlic sauce (I used 3 tablespoons)
- Fish sauce (I used 1 tablespoon)
- Tomato paste (I used 3 frozen cubes of home-made paste, the equivalent of half a small can)
- Canned tomatoes (I used 2 cans of fire-roasted tomatoes)
- Spaghetti (I used a half-box pf whole wheat)
- Romano cheese
- Parsley
Directions:
- Sauté the capers and olives in the chili-garlic sauce.
- Add in the fish sauce and tomato paste.
- Add the tomatoes and simmer it until thick.
- Cook the pasta al dente, drain (reserve pasta water for next step).
- Pour ½ cup of pasta water into the sauce, mix.
- Mix the sauce and the pasta.
- Top with grated cheese and parsley, and serve with crusty bread a fresh salad.
Looks great, and get some good cured olives and this will be even better.
Interesting fusion/swap of ingredients. It sounds delicious! I will makes this next time I’m craving spaghetti alla puttanesca.
I have actually met Sam Sifton and, like most Harvard graduates, he’s an asshole. Sorry, Sam, but I’ll never forget that time we were at [X]’s apartment and he pulled the Harvard card and I said, “At least my university let in Jews and Asians without reservation. Unlike one Ivy League institution. What was its name?”
I’m sorry to hear that – his cookbook is my go-to favorite.
He’s actually a very talented cook. He whipped up some “apps” (a horrible term) that were well-received. But he was so snotty and it wasn’t really justified. We got talking about book publishing, which I know a little bit about, and he told me that his mother was some kind of high-level publishing exec, and I asked, “Well, what happened to you?” (At the time he had various roles at a free weekly called The New York Press.) But then, of course, being a Harvard grad, the Times took him on.
Why is it about a lot of Hahvahd grads? Are they born or made that way? Is there an explanation?
My sister in HR makes fun of Queen’s Engineers because we have a lot of that arrogance. I’m saying most us are formed into a cult like the Scientologists or Marines with it beaten into us in Frosh week/boot camp with a few born into it.
I would never hire one. And I’ve hired many employees and freelancers in my life.
One of my best hires was a woman who went to an excellent private boarding school and then to Columbia, where she majored in French, of course. Brilliant. My other hires went to U of C (Chicago) and Princeton (she didn’t last long.) And other schools, both famous and obscure, but once you get to a certain point, like 25 or 30, it doesn’t really matter.
My company did have a Harvardian who marched into my office one day, I was about five years older than him, and he demanded to know why we didn’t do certain things a certain way. When he left, I called his boss, and she fired him that same day. Luckily, we were all white Christian native-born Americans and it was the ’90s so HR didn’t question our motives.
Definitely want to try this one!
Love the little burst of salt/brine capers add to a dish!
wait….chili garlic sauce?
goddamnit…half the reason i flake on fyces so much is coz i use pre made or packaged sauces in my daily cooking so much…
i thought it was cheating
(my idea of a balanced meal is one that doesnt take much longer to cook than it does to eat)
i think i will try this one over the weekend…as its pescetarian friendly
….. is there a specific chily garlic sauce?…..cause….theres quite a few of them
@Farscythe I used sambol oelek because it was ready here. Any brand of chili garlic sauce is fine. If not available, dump some minced garlic in chili sauce and take it from there.
sambal oelek is one of the most common ones over here and i have it
…..we kind of invaded them and then called their food dutch indonesian
(edit) thanks @elliecoo instructions now perfectly clear…..i have pretty high confidence in this one