Day 133: storecupboard cooking

A quick one from me today. The weather's rubbish, but we have house admin to tend to and, due to a dip on the weather front, our excuse to make the most of the sunshine no longer stands valid - as there isn't any!

I hadn’t planned on this one actually. Instead, I’d planned on spaghetti with anchovies, garlic, chilli and extra virgin olive oil. Then I thought about a little extra sauce. And that’s when Spaghetti alla Puttanesca sprung to mind; basically the aforementioned but with the addition of tomatoes and the powerhouse salty-punch of olives and capers.

Whenever I want to try a new recipe, I Google to see if Nigella has a version of it (makes sense considering this is a Nigell cookalong). How could I possibly have forgotten Slut’s Spaghetti?

Nigella’s Slattern’s Spaghetti (aka Spaghetti alla Puttanesca)

I don’t really like to include incomplete eats in this cookalong. I feel like it’s cheating (unless for dietary reasons), but in cases where you’re caught short - as I was last night with a lack of black olives - then I think it’s OK. In lack of the olives, I doubled the capers and, because I like it saucy (when it comes to tomato-based pasta dishes), I halved the spaghetti to feed two but kept the sauce quantities as per the recipe.

Flavour musings

From this day forward: a storecupboard essential. I love the salty punch of the capers, the umami hit of the anchovies and the sharp, slightly acidic, tone of the tomatoes. For a dish so simple, and created in history on the basis of not being able to collect/afford fresh ingredients - it’s marvellously delicious. I must dash: I need to get showered, make myself look vaguely presentable, get to the shops, shop, and get back home; all in time to have the car back for its MOT in two hours.