Skip to main content

Pasta sauce from jars

I had to cook tonight, but I didn't really feel like it. I had wanted to do some kind of fun experiments this weekend until I got to the weekend, and my energy and motivation just immediately evaporated. As such, I decided it was time to make a lazy dinner.
I'm a fan of pasta puttanesca and would have loved to have made that, but I didn't have all of the ingredients, so I just made something vaguely similar and pretended like it was a good idea. I scooped out a few black, green, and kalamata olives, plus a handful of capers, a couple cloves of garlic, a tomato, and a can of sardines. I figured that would work.
I skinned and diced the tomato, minced up the olives and capers together, minced the garlic cloves, and chopped up the sardines. Quick and easy, just like I had hoped.
Once I had my pasta boiling, I started off my sauce by sautéing the sardines and garlic in olive oil. The sardines were pre-cooked, so I didn't have to let that run for too long. I just wanted to sweat the garlic a little and get the flavors blended before I added in everything else. I dumped the tomato in, mixed it all together, and let it sit for a little while until most of the liquid had evaporated from the pan.
Next up, I dumped in the olives and capers and did the same as I did with the tomato: mix and wait until the liquid was about gone. Since the green and kalamata olives and capers were brined, I didn't add much seasoning at all, just a bit of black pepper.
Once the pasta was finished, I poured a bit of the pasta water into my sauce and mixed that in to turn my crusty paste into something a bit more mixable. I drained the pasta, then tossed it into the pan. Voila.
From start to finish, this took about 20 minutes. I used my vegetable peeler to shave a slice of Romano cheese on top, and it was off to the races. Not quite as bold of a flavor as puttanesca, but I felt like it captured the basic concept while still offering something unique. Definitely worth trying again, but I'll probably double the garlic. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Restaurant week: My new Mexican restaurant

 As I mentioned the other day, my Mexican restaurant closed down. Luckily, they opened up in a new space a couple of months later. Great new look, new name ("Lopez Grill"), they've got a bar, staff is expanded, and the place is always packed. Business seems to be going great. Now, this isn't just a rehash of my post about the 'Dolo. While the menu is largely the same, there have been a few changes, plus I'm going to share a few things I've learned eating there. On my first visit to the new location (which was opening day, right when the doors opened; yes, I was standing in line outside with the other faithful), Señor Lopez brought me a bowl of their new salsa. He called it "guacamole salsa," but it's a jalapeño-based sauce. It's got an almost creamy texture, but is dairy-free (I asked for my vegan friend). Being a jalapeño salsa, it's got some heat, but not nearly as overbearing as some capsaicin-phobes may fear. It is perfectly bala...

I don't understand food

Part 1 the morning after, while eating a sausage, egg, and cheese everything bagel from Bergen Bagels Last night, I had the pleasure, privilege, and audacity to eat at a Brooklyn restaurant named Aska . I know it's cliche to refer to a fancy restaurant meal as a life-changing experience, but this was straight up paradigm-shattering. I've written before about food being a medium of communication, about how I strive to reduce food waste as much as I can, about sharing our cultures and stories with each other through the meals we create, but seeing how Chef Fredrik Berselius is able to do this at such an intricate, elegant, and elevated level is both humbling and inspiring. The experience started before the first bite. I walked into the 10 table restaurant, and they knew me by name. I was shown to my table (right in the middle of the place, looking directly into the open kitchen), and they even pulled my chair out for me and pushed it up under me. I was a little uncomfortable with...

Restaurant week: Polish food truck tasting

Due to a strange combination of circumstances, I recently found myself at a menu tasting for a soon to open Polish food truck called Halinka's Polish Eatery . I'm about 99% sure I was the only person in attendance who wasn't already personally known to the owner/chef, Magda, but it was a good time. Got to meet some nice folks and eat free food, but then I had to give feedback in public in front of other people, so that kind of sucked. Like, really fucking sucked. Pretty sure my face my was red the entire time. This is the price we pay for food sometimes. Our first course was a cabbage and mushroom pierogi with a side of beets. Apparently when the food truck gets going, the pierogis will be steamed, then finished either on a grill or in a skillet with some butter. However, due to facility constraints where we were trying the dishes, Magda had to serve them just steamed. Anyway, to the food: the cabbage and mushroom pierogis were fucking amazing. There was a tremendous depth ...