Friday 23 October 2009

Smoky Puttanesca

Saving this for re-use, sharing... and also asking for more puttanesca recipes, or ideas for things to try with this one; it was good, but not quite what I was going for.

Sauteed for ~3 mins:

6 cloves of garlic diced (well all right; 12. But they were tiny little things and hardly counted for half.)
Half a large Spanish onion, diced.
1 tin smoked sardines. (no anchovies :( )
1 chipotle in adobo, diced, and a bit of the adobo sauce from the tin.

Added, then simmered for ~20 minutes:
1 small tin of tomato paste + 3 tins of water.
1 medium tin of chopped fire-roasted tomatoes.
about a glass of red wine.
about a tablespoon of smoked paprika.
20 black olives, chopped.
3 tablespoons of capers.

Those chipotles are hell-on-wheels, but I think it needed a bit more hot. Liked the various smoky flavours running through it. The rough source baseline recipe called for crushed tomatoes rather than paste and water, but you work with what you've got...

6 comments:

Mz. B.Trousers said...

Still arsed I forgot to grab a tin of chipoltes from you. What are the odds of throwing one in a box?
The Stubbs spicy BBQ sauce got tried yesterday with eggs. It's good, but misses the richness of Texas Texas. We'll try the other one soon and let you know.

anti ob said...

I know; I meant to press some on you, as my favorite Essence of the Gods, but forgot. We'll chuck a few in a box with some stuff - tinned foods pretty much always make it through customs fine.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

I remember the one Gordo made about 123951943561 years ago as the bestest evah. from memory (which could be a bit wrong but mostly not):

he made the basic tomato sauce, perhaps with garlic at the beginning, but then added whole roasted garlic cloves to the sauce towards the end, not chopped or anything.

almost right at the end he added anchovies which had been smooshed up. I think that's part of the secret. I wouldn't be adding fish right at the beginning because they lose too much flavour. the anchoviness was not overbearing, definitely present, but hadn't been cooked out.

also: kalamatas! black olives suck the pus, I don't know why anyone cooks with them. kalamatas have a much fuller/rounder flavour.

Dr Nik said...

Man this sounds great...its breakfast and im tempted to make it :-)

Putanesca became a standard when we were hiking, where we would add a tin of tuna for a bit of meat...aka fishy whore pasta

Did you ever get your smoker up and running rob? ive been looking into doing it here in holland. However, the dutch are so nosy that I think the police would be here in 30seconds after starting it

anti ob said...

I'll have to try adding the fish later, and the whole garlic cloves; yum!

I did some smoking back before we left Sydney in the Turkinator; just built a small smoky fire up one end and put the food down the other. Worked fairly well, but takes a long time, so I didn't do it often. This being the land of pulled pork - I kid you not; its smoked pig pulled from the bone rather than cut - I get tasty smoked meats from time to time. But for some bizarre reason they always take the yummy yummy meat and serve it in an enormous lump on a whitebread hamburger bun with _nothing_ else. On a crunchy sourdough roll with some melted cheese, grilled onions, and crisp lettuce and tomato it would be ambrosia. Keep meaning to buy one take-away and bring it home to turn it into a real sandwich.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

I was watching the River Cottage guy on telly last week and he smoked a fresh fish in an old bread-keeper tin over an open fire. and folk me, it looked good. I gotta learn how to smoke.