Quick Puttanesca Spaghetti

Hi, this recipe is from Simple Recipes, Amazing Food, All Plants, BOSH! cookbook, by Henry Firth and Ian Theasby. 

I quite liked the sauce that went with this dish. I thought that adding capers into a tomato pasta sauce was a great idea as they add additional salt to the dish, which helps to boost the flavour. I thought this might also be nice made with a tin of chopped tomatoes plus half-a-tinful of water to rinse the tin out as well, for extra liquid. This would make the sauce a bit thicker, but this is not necessary. 

Also, I found that the lemon flavour was quite strong. It may have been down to the lemon I used (it was quite large!) but next time I would be tempted to add only 1/2, then taste before deciding whether or not to add anymore. Additionally, if you wanted to add some protein to this dish, (non-vegans may want to add chicken strips) a tin of chickpeas, or some 'fake chicken' strips e.g. What the Cluck ones would be nice. These additions are not very traditional for a Puttanesca (a more traditional approach would be to add anchovies, or even tuna, but these are not vegan, so I have suggested a couple of other ideas) but still would make for a nice dish in my opinion.

Enjoy!

Hazel

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Dietary Info:

-No Nuts

-Dairy-Free

-Contains Gluten

{Use whatever gluten-free pasta you have available, it doesn't have to be spaghetti.}

-Main Meal

-Vegan

-Vegetarian

Serves: 6

Takes: 45mins

Ingredients:

-2 small red chillies, fresh or dried {I used 1 leftover fresh green chilli, deseeded as that was what we had in and my sister isn't too keen on spice. If possible, I would recommend red chillies as I think they would work better in this sauce.} 

-20g flat-leaf parsley

-10 Kalamata olives {I used pitted green olives.}

-4 garlic cloves

-4tbsp olive oil {I used extra virgin olive oil.}

-1tbsp capers, plus 1tbsp of brine from the jar

-1/2tsp salt, plus a little extra

-700g passata

-500g spaghetti {I used less as I was only serving for 4, not 6.}

-220g Tenderstem broccoli {I used a 200g packet, but as I was serving for 4, this was okay.}

-1 lemon

Method:

1: {Put a:} Large saucepan on a medium-high heat. Large saucepan of boiling salted water on a high heat. {You may not want to put anything actually onto heat yet, as in the empty saucepan, you are just wasting power and in the water pan, you may evaporate off a lot of the water before you use it. I just boiled a kettle in advance and left the water in it, rather than already putting it into a pan.}

2: Rip the stems from the chillies, {The 'ripping' is just so that you waste as little of the chilli as possible.} cut them in half lengthways and remove the seeds if you prefer a milder sauce, and finely chop. Separate the parsley stalks and finely chop, reserving the leaves for later. Stone and roughly chop the olives.

3: Peel 2 of the garlic cloves. {If you don't have a garlic crusher, finely chop now.} Pour 2tbsp of the oil into the empty saucepan, crush in the garlic and add the chillies, parsley stalks, olives and capers {Not the caper brine yet.} and stir fry for 2-3mins. Add the 1/2tsp salt and 1tsbp salty brine water from the jar of capers. Leave to cook for 1 minute, then add the passata. Taste and season with salt, if necessary. Turn the heat to medium {I ended up leaving it on low, on a smaller hob.} and leave to simmer while you move on to the next step.

4: Add the spaghetti to the pan of boiling water along with the remaining 2 garlic cloves {I presume the garlic cloves are peeled here, but I am not 100% sure.}. Cook until al dente, following the instructions on the packet.

5: Meanwhile, carefully slice the broccoli stems from top to bottom, creating thin strips. Add these to the spaghetti pan for the last 30 seconds of cooking time {I would suggest adding in the last 2mins, as mine were still a bit hard after 30seconds, or simmering them longer in the sauce.} to quickly soften. Drain the pasta and broccoli in a colander and return them to the pan. Pour over the sauce.

6: Roughly chop the parsley leaves and add them to the pan. Pour over the remaining 2tbsp of oil and squeeze over the juice of a whole lemon, catching any pips in your other hand. Mix everything together and serve immediately.

While you're here...

I have a Pinterest for all my recipes, where you can save them to boards for the future and categorise them into different types of recipe e.g Sunday Dinners, picnic ideas etc. My account is @hazellikestocook, or find the link below. Also, I have a whole blog post explaining this in more detail here and https://hazelscookingandbakingblog.blogspot.com/2021/02/pinterest.html. 

https://pin.it/5xDvARk - my profile

This recipe:

https://pin.it/2oSVnPE