Tomato and Anchovy Sauce
Marcella recommends spaghettini, the thin version of spaghetti as the preferred pasta for this sauce. I didn’t think this was significant until the penultimate step in the recipe, when the sauce is combined with the cooked pasta and all the strands of the pasta are coated. The thinner the pasta, the more sauce on the pasta, the better the end result. Good advice, Marcella.
One ingredient in the photo below is problematic for my spouse. She doesn’t care for anchovies in any form. Ah well, in this enterprise my loyalty belongs to Marcella. By the way, Marcella provides detailed directions on the preparation of the anchovy fillets when purchased in large tins under salt. The only anchovies available in my area are packed in oil in smaller tins.
Step 3 in the recipe directions results in this rather unusual apparition – a homemade double-boiler.
The sauce – oil, garlic, anchovies, salt, pepper and tomatoes – cooking at a steady simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
The final result.
The most surprising ingredient in this recipe is one that isn’t there. No grated cheese. I had to check a couple of times to make sure I hadn’t missed it.
What did my spouse, the anchovy-phobe, think of this dish? “It’s delicious,” was her first comment. No problems with anchovies when prepared like this.
This recipe is easy to prepare and the results are excellent – a winning combination. Thanks Marcella.
I have grown a little less dogmatic about whether or not to use parmigiano in a dish, but I am absolutely irremovable when it comes to a soup or sauce with anchovies. It is, in just 4 words, in-com-pa-tible! If you have to add something, add bread crumbs. The sprinkling of cheese over everything is one of the more regrettable clichés of Italian-American cooking.
As I think I have mentioned elsewhere, when I lived in New York there were Greek grocers who sold marvelous meaty whole anchovies under salt pried loose from a large tin. I no longer see them around, but good, flat anchovy fillets such as those by Ortiz or Recca do the job. The ones in your photo, Doug, look terrific. You evidently did a great a job that brought your wife around. Thank you for getting the point of spaghettini. Unfortunately they are not even that easy to find. I buy them online from Chefshop.
I’m really enjoying this blog – and Marcella’s generous contributions in the comments which are like a director’s commentary to a classic film – but woudn’t it make more sense to break the meals up rather than cooking the same type of food until it runs out (if that is what you are doing) eg have a meat dish, and a salad and so on. You could even structure the days so they read in sequence like an Italian meal. As they say, Man cannot live on pasta alone. I think it would just be more interesting for everyone, including you guys.
Pomodori e Vino responds:
Thanks David, for your comments and suggestions. Acutally, a lot of careful thought went into how we put this project together and designed the format and appearance of the blog.
We wanted to create a blog that focuses the posts on single recipes and follows the book, page for page, so that when our 62 weeks come to an end, there will be an orderly and complete record.
Ideally, a person who wants to learn Italian cooking from Marcella, will purchase a copy of Essentials; study it like a textbook; choose the recipes he wants to attempt; and then come to our blog, knowing that he can easily search for the post about that recipe and see at least one if not a series of photographs from our own results.
The bonus, of course, is the wonderful and generous comments Marcella makes here. None of us expected that. But we are thrilled, and honored. To us, it is the next best thing to having been one of her students in Venice.
Because we focus on each recipe in order, doesn’t mean we don’t also prepare a meal to go with the particular recipe we are featuring. Or that we don’t do our cooking out of order. In fact, most of us have already cooked and saved our documentations for the veggie section, simply because their posting schedule falls in the dead of winter when some produce will be unavailable our of inferior quality.
I need to amend that bit about cheese, I was too impetuous in my response. There are always exceptions, and with anchovies these take the form of a little romano cheese sometimes. With a tough pasta like orecchiette or cavatelli, I allow myself some romano. With spaghettini, however, no. On the other hand, de gustibus …
Doug, as always, I really enjoy the journey of your photographs. First the assembled ingredients, the various steps of the process and then the finished dish.
My husband and I adore anchovies, both fresh and preserved. We are lucky that we are able purchase the ones packed in salt, they are available in our area.
We sometimes have dinner guests that do not appreciate anchovies as we do. But when we serve a Marcella pasta sauce that has anchovies, they are never aware of the fact they are eating a sauce that contains anchovies! I think maybe it is because with Marcella’s recipes, they simply add a layer of flavor, nothing to overwhelm or overpower the dish, just a subtle addition?
I am glad your wife liked the dish! Bravo!