Spicy Puttanesca with Chilli, Anchovy and Capers
ITALIAN · ITALY

Spicy Puttanesca with Chilli, Anchovy and Capers

Pasta alla puttanesca piccanteMain

Naples' most infamous sauce: garlic and anchovy melted into hot oil, crushed tomatoes, salt-cured olives and capers, and enough chilli to make it genuinely angry. Deep, briny, funky and fiery — this is puttanesca dialled up, not tamed down.

Total
40 min
Heat
4/5
Serves
4

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Flavour profile

Heat
Funk
Acid
Richness
Umami
  • Briny
  • Garlicky
  • Spicy
  • Umami

The real deal

Region
Naples, Campania — the sauce is said to have been thrown together in minutes by working girls who needed a fast, punchy supper.
Technique
The garlic, anchovy and peperoncino are gently melted in olive oil before the tomatoes go in, so the sauce is built on a briny, chilli-flecked base rather than just dumped together.
We kept
The defining quartet — anchovy, olives, capers and chilli — with no cheese on the seafood and plenty of pasta water to emulsify the sauce into something glossy and clinging.

Ingredients

4 Serves

pasta

  • 400 g
  • 1 tbsp

Sauce

  • 5 tbsp
  • 5 cloves · sliced paper-thin
  • 8 · in oil, drained; salt-packed is even better
  • 3 · crumbled, seeds and all
  • 800 g · San Marzano if you can
  • 240 g · pitted, torn in two
  • 4 tbsp · in brine, drained; salt-packed rinsed

finish

  • 2 bunches · roughly chopped

Method

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and salt it heavily — it should taste like the sea, about 1 tbsp . Drop in the and cook until just shy of al dente, a minute less than the packet says. Scoop out a mug of the starchy cooking water before you drain.

    Do not drain the pasta bone-dry: the starchy water is what turns the oil and tomato into a glossy sauce that clings.

  2. Slice the paper-thin. Drain the and the , pit the and tear them in two, crumble the with its seeds, and roughly chop the . Have everything within arm's reach of the stove before you turn on the heat.

    Garlic sliced thin, not chopped: it melts into the oil instead of burning into bitter little bits.

  3. Set a wide pan over medium heat with the 5 tbsp . Add the sliced garlic, the anchovies and the crumbled chilli. Cook gently, pressing the anchovies with a wooden spoon, until they dissolve into the oil and the garlic is pale gold and smells nutty — about 3 min. Do not let the garlic brown or the whole thing turns bitter.

    If the garlic starts to colour hard, splash in a spoonful of pasta water to stop it dead.

  4. Add the , crushing each one in your hand as it goes in, then the olives and capers. Stir, bring to a gentle bubble and simmer until the sauce thickens and the oil starts to separate at the edges, about 15 min. Taste it — it will be salty and fierce.

    Crushing the tomatoes by hand gives a rougher, juicier sauce than blending; the olives and capers only need the last few minutes.

  5. Tip the drained spaghetti straight into the pan and toss hard over medium heat, adding splashes of the reserved pasta water until the sauce turns glossy and coats every strand. Cook for another 1 min so the pasta finishes in the sauce.

    Keep tossing rather than stirring gently: the agitation is what makes the oil and tomato emulsify.

  6. Kill the heat, fold through most of the and give it one last toss. Serve immediately in warm bowls, with the rest of the parsley scattered over the top.

    No parmesan on this one — in Naples the anchovy and chilli do that job, and cheese smothers the funk.

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