Spaghetti alla Puttanesca (Italian Spaghetti with Tomato, Olives and Capers) Puttanesca is the loudest sauce in the Italian repertoire and one of the fastest. Anchovies, garlic, chilli, tomatoes, black olives and salted capers go into a pan in that order and are on the table in the time it takes the spaghetti to cook. Nothing in it is fresh except the parsley and the garlic, which is precisely the point: this is a dish assembled from what a southern Italian kitchen keeps in t

Pasta ai Frutti di Mare (Italian Apulian Seafood Pasta) On the Ionian side of Puglia this is not a special occasion dish. It is what a family eats when somebody has been to the market early, and the argument about it happens at the fish counter rather than at the stove. Four kinds of shellfish, garlic, good oil, a glass of white wine, a handful of tomatoes if the cook feels like it, and linguine. What separates a plate of pasta with seafood scattered over it from a real pasta

Traditional Sagne a Pèzze e Cicerchie: rustic Abruzzese water-and-flour pasta with grass peas, pancetta, tomato, peperoncino and Pecorino.