Spaghetti alla puttanesca (literally "whore's style spaghetti" in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

) is a spicy, tangy, somewhat salty Italian

Italian cuisine

Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...

 pasta

Pasta

Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...

 dish invented in the mid-20th century. The ingredients are typical of Southern Italian cuisine

Italian cuisine

Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...

.

Origin

Various accounts exist as to when and how the dish originated, but it likely dates to the mid-twentieth century. The earliest known mention of it is in a 1961 Italian novel which mentions spaghetti alla puttanesca come li fanno a Siracusa (spaghetti alla puttanesca as they make it in Syracuse). According to the Professional Union of Italian Pasta Makers the sauce became popular in the 1960s.

The 1971 edition of the Cucchiaio d’argento

Il cucchiaio d'argento

Il cucchiaio d'argento is a major Italian cookbook, a kitchen reference work originally published in 1950 by the design and architecture magazine Domus. It contains about 2000 recipes drawn from all over Italy, and has gone through eight editions...

has no recipe with this name, but two which are similar. The Neapolitan Spaghetti alla partenopea, is made with anchovies and generous quantities of oregano

Oregano

Oregano – scientifically named Origanum vulgare by Carolus Linnaeus – is a common species of Origanum, a genus of the mint family . It is native to warm-temperate western and southwestern Eurasia and the Mediterranean region.Oregano is a perennial herb, growing from 20–80 cm tall,...

, while spaghetti alla siciliana is distinguished by the addition of green peppers

Bell pepper

Bell pepper, also known as sweet pepper or a pepper and capsicum , is a cultivar group of the species Capsicum annuum . Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, orange and green. Bell peppers are sometimes grouped with less pungent pepper varieties as...

.

According to Annarita Cuomo, writer for Il Golfo, a newspaper serving the Italian islands of Ischia

Ischia

Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 km from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south and has...

 and Procida

Procida

Procida is one of the Flegrean Islands off the coast of Naples in southern Italy. The island is between Cape Miseno and the island of Ischia. With its tiny satellite island of Vivara, it is a comune of the province of Naples, in the region of Campania. The population is about ten...

, sugo alla puttanesca was invented in the 1950s by Sandro Petti, co-owner of Rancio Fellone, a famous Ischian restaurant and nightspot.

Basic recipe

The sauce alone is called sugo alla puttanesca in Italian. Recipes may differ according to preferences. In most cases, however, the sugo is a little salty (from the anchovies), spicy (from the peppers) and quite fragrant (from the garlic). Traditionally, the sauce is served with spaghetti

Spaghetti

Spaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin. Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour...

, although it also goes well with penne

Penne

Penne is a type of pasta with cylinder-shaped pieces. Penne is the plural form of the Italian penna, deriving from Latin penna . In Italy, penne are produced in two main variants: "penne lisce" and "penne rigate" , the latter having ridges on each penna...

, bucatini

Bucatini

Bucatini is a thick spaghetti-like pasta with a hole running through the center. The name comes from , meaning "hole", while bucato means "pierced"....

, linguine

Linguine

Linguine is a form of pasta — flat like fettuccine and trenette. It is wider than spaghetti, about 1/4 to 3/8 inch, but not as wide as fettuccine. The name linguine means "little tongues" in Italian, where it is a plural of the feminine linguina. Linguine are also called trenette or bavette...

 and vermicelli

Vermicelli

Vermicelli is a traditional type of pasta round in section that is thicker than spaghetti.-Vermicelli thickness comparison:In USA, the National Pasta Association, founded in 1904, lists, together with various spelling mistakes, vermicelli as a thinner type of spaghetti.-History in Italy:In...

.

Chopped garlic

Garlic

Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...

, diced onions and anchovies

Anchovy

Anchovies are a family of small, common salt-water forage fish. There are 144 species in 17 genera, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Anchovies are usually classified as an oily fish.-Description:...

 (omit for Neapolitan version) are sautéed in olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...

. Chopped chili pepper

Chili pepper

Chili pepper is the fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. The term in British English and in Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia and other Asian countries is just chilli without pepper.Chili peppers originated in the Americas...

s, olives, capers, diced tomato

Tomato

The word "tomato" may refer to the plant or the edible, typically red, fruit which it bears. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler...

es and oregano

Oregano

Oregano – scientifically named Origanum vulgare by Carolus Linnaeus – is a common species of Origanum, a genus of the mint family . It is native to warm-temperate western and southwestern Eurasia and the Mediterranean region.Oregano is a perennial herb, growing from 20–80 cm tall,...

 are added along with salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 and black pepper

Black pepper

Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...

 to taste. The cook then reduces

Reduction (cooking)

In cooking, reduction is the process of thickening and intensifying the flavor of a liquid mixture such as a soup, sauce, wine, or juice by boiling....

 this mixture by simmering and it is poured over spaghetti cooked al dente

Al dente

In cooking, the Italian expression al dente describes pasta and rice or beansthat have been cooked so as to be firm but not hard. "Al dente" also describes vegetables that are cooked to the "tender crisp" phase - still offering resistance to the bite, but cooked through...

. The final touch is a topping of parsley

Parsley

Parsley is a species of Petroselinum in the family Apiaceae, native to the central Mediterranean region , naturalized elsewhere in Europe, and widely cultivated as an herb, a spice and a vegetable.- Description :Garden parsley is a bright green hairless biennial herbaceous plant in temperate...

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