April 20, 2023, 1:25 pm | Read time: 3 minutes
They are easy to prepare with just a few ingredients and taste absolutely delicious: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca, translated as “in the style of a prostitute.” Our Italian author Francesco Marino explains in the video where the unusual name comes from and how to easily make the pasta sauce yourself.
Tomatoes, anchovies, capers, and olives: That’s all you need to make a good Puttanesca sauce for delicious spaghetti—and bring the taste of the sun and sea of southern Italy to your home. “The name of the sauce has a very special meaning,” says Francesco Marino, who hails from Calabria. “The legend comes from Naples, where a man ran a brothel. There, he offered not only women but also this special pasta.”
Other stories suggest that prostitutes often ate the dish themselves between visits from their clients because it was particularly quick and easy to prepare. Yet another theory claims that the women working in Italian brothels in the 1950s left their workplace only once a week to buy groceries. Whenever supplies ran low, they made the pasta dish from the remaining ingredients.
What exactly is true will probably never be discovered. However, the name of the dish persists to this day—and the sauce is popular throughout Italy and beyond. In the video above, Francesco shows how to make perfect Spaghetti alla Puttanesca.
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Spaghetti alla Puttanesca – Ingredients
Ingredients for 4 People:
- 400 g spaghetti
- 1 clove of garlic
- 50 g black olives (pitted)
- Anchovy fillets (in oil)
- 40 g capers
- 700 g peeled tomatoes (canned or fresh)
- Olive oil
- A handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley
- Salt
- Pepper
- Parmesan
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Spaghetti alla Puttanesca – Preparation
Slice the garlic clove and cut the anchovy fillets into pieces. Sauté the garlic in olive oil that is not too hot—it must not turn brown! Add the anchovies and let them “melt” in the oil. Then add the tomatoes and crush them with a fork—stir everything and season with salt and pepper. Let the sauce simmer slowly. Meanwhile, slice the olives into rings and chop the capers, add both to the sauce and stir, continue to simmer while chopping the parsley.
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Cook the spaghetti until al dente, drain, add to the pan, and sprinkle with parsley. Carefully stir everything and distribute the pasta onto plates. Finally, sprinkle with Parmesan and serve.
Buon appetito!