The other night up in Todi I made a last minute pasta for dinner. The ingredients were simply what I had in the panty, which I make sure to keep well stocked. I know I’m not the only one to ever sing the praises of a well stocked panty as a dinner resource. And I’m not even the first to say ‘make puttanesca’ ,a pantry staple. But here’s the thing about my pantry. A lot of times it’s stocked with goodies that are sent to me to try out. Things I not only wouldn’t find at my local market, but items that I’ve never even cooked with before.
So when I opened my jars of tomatoes they weren’t the ordinary red San Marzano pelati or even my own tomatoes I put up over the summer. They were jars of bright yellow cherry tomatoes that I had been thinking were some kind of jam in the back reaches of my shelves for about a year. Every time I would go to make a crostata I would spy these jars hiding out behind the bags of beans and cans of tuna, pull them out thinking they were orange marmalade only to find the bright yellow cherry tomatoes my friend Beatrice had given me last year. “Oh, I should use these’ I’d think, before setting them down, still in search of jam, and forgetting about them as they migrated their way back to the far reaches of my dispensa.
Until Friday when I decided to give them a spin.
I think one of the reasons that I had avoided using these tomatoes was because the only other time I had them they had been turned into a simple tomato sauce that, frankly wasn’t that impressive. The thing is with yellow tomatoes, which are grown just south of Naples in Campania, is that they are sweeter and less acidic, than their red cousins. Which is fine in theory, but for me the super simple tomato sauce I had in Grangnano was just a tad boring. It lacked zip.
Puttanesca sauce, made up of tomatoes, with capers, anchovies, olives, garlic and a hint of pepperoncino, is pure zip. (Here is a classic recipe for it).So I decided that puttanesca was the perfect opportunity to spice up the pomodorini gialli.
I ended up forgoing the capers (I didn’t have any) but did use extra garlic and some super spicy red pepper from Calabria. 8 anchovy fillets instead of the normal 4 or 5 added ample umami and briny saltiness. Which I needed because I also decided to use big fat green olives from Ceringnola instead of small black olives.
Usually for Puttanesca I use the smallest, most intense black olives I can find. The tiny ones that come from Gaeta are perfect. But instead I had the bright green orbs from Puglia, which are much less aggressive, and definitely on the fruity side.
My brilliant idea (actually it was as much due to laziness as anything else) was to leave the olives whole, instead of pitting them.. I LOVED the contrast of the bright yellow tomatoes and the big fat vivid green of the olives and thought they would look fabulous on the plate. Which they did.
My laziness extended to not taking as many photos as I should have. Sorry about that. If you follow my instagram stories then you got to see thefull recipe being made, as well as more images and videos. For now I’ll leave you with the handful of photos I took, as well as the recipe.
The rest of the meal came together simply. After our pasta course, I used lettuce just picked form the garden to make a salad with our freshly pressed olive oil, which I also drizzled on top of bruschetta toasted on the fire. For dessert I made Sky McAlpines Saffron Panna Cotta . FYI: it pairs perfectly with the Nonino Aged Chardonnay Grappa.
My friend Beatrice sells both the tomatoes as well as the olives at her site Gustiamo, and Eataly (at least in Italy) carries them as well. So if you do feel like making this, you can. And if you are craving olio nuovo after you’ve seen these bruschetta you can order directly from our friends at Montioni. Just send them an email here.
The Menu
Aperitivi:
Negronis by the fireplace and pistachios
Primo:
Yellow and Green Pasta Puttanesca (recipe below)
Secondo:
Bruschetta with Olio Nuovo
Green salad from the garden, with more olio nuovo
Dolce:
Saffron Panna Cotta (from Skye McAlpine’s A Table in Venice)
Drinks:
Negronis first, then we moved on to Chianti Classico. Nonino Aged Chardonnay Grappa paired perfectly with the Saffron Panna Cotta.
Setting the Table
Dishes: Made by Alessi in Caltigirone
Those bizarre candlesticks were bought by the man who tended one of the locks on the Canal du Midi in France. He was also a sculpture and these were the only pieces small enough to fit in my suitcase.
Glassware: All bought at the supermarket in Todi.
Yellow and Green Pasta Puttanesca
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup of olive oil

- 4 large cloves of garlic, chopped
- 
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)
- 
3 400 gr jars or cans of yellow cherry tomatoes

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

- 1 1/2 cups Cerignola olives with pits

- 500 grams / 1 pound of pasta (I used Faella penne lisce)
1 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
Instructions
Pour the olive oil into a pan large enough to hold all of the cooked pasta later. Add the chopped garlic and the red pepper flakes and heat over medium heat just until the garlic begins to turn golden. Be careful not to let it brown.
Add the tomatoes and all of their juices and salt. Bring to a simmer and add the olives.
Let cook at a medium high heat for about 20 minutes. If the sauce seems to be reducing too fast, add a half cup of water.
In the meantime bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the pasta until al dente.
Drain the pasta and add to the pot with the sauce, stirring to combine. Add the parsley and stir.
Serve, making sure everyone gets some olives. Also make sure to tell people the olives still have pits!! And it's a good idea to provide a few littles plates where people can place their discarded pits. If they put them back on their plate they may end up eating them and breaking a tooth!
In keeping with the yellow theme of the dinner I also made the recipe for Safron Panna Cotta from Sky McAlpine's book A Table in Venice. I will never make plane old panna cotta again. I loved it's exotic slightly savory taste and it paired perfectly with the bottle of aged Chardonnay Nonino Grappa that was also happily in my pantry.
It is really wonderful as a vegetarian/pescetarian to see that your entertaining sometimes veers that way!
Most times! It’s an easy, and delicious, way to deal with various food intolerances. So many people don’t eat meat these days.
people say they can’t cook; however, this is so easy!