Pantry Puttanesca

It's been awhile since I cooked purely for pleasure, longer still since I made dinner for myself. Cooking for one is, rather ironically, a treat in the Khoo household. You see, making your own dinner takes some forethought, as there is always food of some sort on the dining table, but I was in the rare mood to spend some time pottering about the kitchen doing something unrelated to work.

Eschewing cookbooks and food websites, I flicked through my mental archive of toss-it-together recipes instead and almost immediately decided on pasta Puttanesca. Why, I have no idea. I'd barely skimmed through an article on it weeks, possibly even months ago, and all I remembered were these key words – tomatoes, anchovies and whore's pasta. (Culinary lore believes that Puttanesca was named after ladies of the night, who lured men into brothels with the sauce's intense aroma.)

I vaguely remember olives and fresh herbs in the equation, but I was too lazy to trek out to the grocer's, and really, isn't the absence of a recipe the best bit about non-work cooking? Somewhere along raiding my pantry and mentally rocking up a recipe, I decided to corrupt it all with a topping of garlicky breadcrumbs, just because there was panko in my kitchen drawer. This is bastardised Puttanesca at its worst, comforting home-cooked supper at its best.

Leigh's pantry Puttanesca
Serves 2

1 small box cherry tomatoes
4 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
¼ cup panko or stale breadcrumbs
Handful pasta (I used wholewheat spaghetti)
1 tin anchovies 
handful of baby spinach
handful of feta, crumbled (optional)
handful of basil, torn (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Toss the cherry tomatoes in 1 tbsp olive oil and ⅓ of the garlic. Pop these into the oven and roast at 180C until the tomatoes start to blister and shrivel. I didn't time, but it probably took me about 30 mins. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. Toast the panko in a small frying pan with 1 tbsp olive oil and ⅓ of the garlic, tossing or stirring occasionally until the crumbs are golden.
3. Cook the pasta until al dente in a pot of salted water. Drain and reserve ¼ cup of pasta water.
4. Heat the remaining oil in a pan and saute the remaining garlic until fragrant. Add in the anchovies and cook, stirring continuously, until they melt. Tip in the roasted tomatoes, give it a good stir and then add in the spinach. Cook, covered, for a min, and then add in the cooked pasta. Add a few tbsp of the reserved pasta water and toss to coat the pasta.
5. Crumble in some feta to taste, and stir through the basil, if using. Eat immediately, preferably in front of the telly! :)