Spicy Shrimp and Penne with Puttanesca Sauce

Name: Spicy Shrimp and Penne with Puttanesca Sauce
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 pound penne pasta; Coarse salt; 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) (4 times around the pan); 8 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes (eyeball it in your palm); 8 to 10 whole anchovy fillets; 1/2 cup cracked, pitted, good-quality black olives, such as kalamata, or 1/3 cup pitted oil-cured black olives (saltier taste), your choice, coarsely chopped; 3 to 4 tablespoons capers, drained and coarsely chopped; 1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes; 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes; 1 pound (24 count) peeled and deveined shrimp, tails removed; 2 handfuls fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped

December 9, 2011

Puttanesca is a sauce named after streetwalkers. The ladies would make pots of a fishy-smelling mixture of tomatoes, anchovies, and garlic and leave the pots in brothel windows to attract fishermen in like stray cats. After the business was done, the sauce was tossed with pasta and became their dinner, or breakfast. This is a very unappetizing story for such a delicious dish, so when I am asked what “it” means, I tell a slightly less descriptive version, which you can pass along: Puttanesca is the sauce of the ladies of the night because it’s spicy, fast, and easy! (It still makes me blush, but at least I remain hungry.)

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