abstract poet: Who You Calling a Puttanesca?

My mama always told me I needed to be more organized. I never paid her much heed (as anyone who’s ever roomed with me or seen my desk at work can attest). But once I started trying to cook semi-complicated dishes with more than ten different ingredients that needed to be prepped and at least half a dozen steps, I discovered that (gasp!) at least in this one area of life, maybe moms had a point.

Sure, Jamie Oliver can have three different pots and pans sizzling on high heat while he calmly dices up an onion into perfect cubes with one hand tied behind his back, but do I look like an exceedingly handsome blonde celebrity chef with a charming British accent? Don’t answer that.

My kitchen is still often a disaster zone, especially when cooking for guests, but I’ve found that doing as much of your prep ahead of time as possible really makes your life that much easier--and can make cooking seemingly fancy-schmancy dishes a piece of cake, even in a tiny Taiwanese kitchen. My wife (the Queen of Prep, whom I bow down to) would back me up on this, I’m sure.

So, maybe it’s a bit of extra work, but it’s well worth your while to have little bowls of chopped this and that all set up before you even turn the stove on, just like they do on TV:


Pictured, clockwise from the top left: minced basil (supposedly 1/2 cup, though I was a bit short), grape tomatoes (about 15 of them, halved lengthwise), minced parsley (2 Tbs), a can of tuna in olive oil, minced flat anchovy fillets (4 of them), minced garlic (3 cloves), chopped black olives (1/2 cup), a handful of capers in their juices, and dried oregano (a teaspoon).

That, and a half a package of thin spaghetti, is all you need to make Spaghettini Puttanesca*, one of the easiest (despite the somewhat daunting amount of mincing you need to do) and most satisfying pasta dishes you can whip up.

Once you’ve done the prep, the dish literally takes less than 10 minutes to put together, turning the above ingredients into this:



All you’ve got to do is:

On one burner, put a big pot of salted water on the other burner and start bringing it to a boil. On another, heat up 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil in a large heavy skillet (medium heat should do). Add the garlic, basil, oregano, capers, and half the parsley to the pan. If you want some kick, you can add a crumbled dried chili or a pinch of red pepper flakes too. Stir everything around and let it all cook for a minute or two, until the garlic softens.

Add the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes until they get soft.

Finally, add the tuna (breaking it up into small chunks), anchovies, and olives. After about a minute, once everything’s heated through, remove the pan from the heat and season it to taste with salt and pepper (you probably won’t need too much of either).

By now your water should be boiling. Cook the spaghettini according to the package instructions (probably 8 or 9 minutes). Once it’s done, drain it, then put it back in the pot. Add the sauce. Toss. Sprinkle on the rest of your minced parsley.

And that’s it. Dinner is served, and all--for once--without even breaking a sweat.

* Roughly adapted from a recipe in Perla Meyers’ “How to Peel a Peach: And 1001 Other Things Every Good Cook Needs to Know”