Linguine Capperi,
Olive e Acciughe
Linguine with capers, olives, and anchovies
Capers, black Gaeta olives, and anchovies melted into garlic and oil, tossed through linguine with a generous amount of parsley. Simple and unassuming, and one I make now and then — it reminds me a little of a vongole or a puttanesca without quite being either.
This is one of those pantry pastas that sits somewhere between two more famous dishes without being either of them. It has the salt and brine of a puttanesca — capers, olives, anchovies — but no tomato, which gives it a lighter, more direct character, closer in feel to a spaghetti alle vongole even though there are no clams anywhere in it. I make it now and then, usually when there is a jar of olives and a tin of anchovies in the pantry and not much else planned for dinner.
The method could not be simpler: dissalt the capers, pit the olives, clean the anchovies, and let all three cook down gently in oil with garlic until the anchovies dissolve into the fat. No sauce to speak of, just the oil carrying everything — a splash of the pasta cooking water at the end brings it together into something that coats the linguine properly rather than sitting separately from it.
No tomato, no clams, and yet it tastes like it belongs in the same family as vongole and puttanesca. Salt, brine, and anchovy carry the whole dish — simple pantry ingredients doing all the work.
The recipe
For six.
Linguine Capperi, Olive e Acciughe — a classic Neapolitan pantry pasta. Click to enlarge.
600 gLinguine or vermicelli
100 gExtra virgin olive oil
2 clovesGarlic
100 gCapers
100 g, pittedBlack olives, Gaeta if possible
100 g, under oilAnchovy fillets
A generous bunch, choppedFresh parsley
To tasteBlack pepper
OptionalA few pieces of well-drained tomato
1
Soak the capers for about an hour to remove excess salt, then drain. Pit the olives.
2
Gently sauté the garlic in the olive oil in a wide pan. Add the capers and olives with a couple of spoonfuls of water, the parsley, and the pepper. Let it cook gently for 4–5 minutes.
3
Just before turning off the heat, add the anchovy fillets and stir until they dissolve into the sauce.
If you have a few pieces of well-drained tomato on hand, add them at the same time as the capers and olives — it is a common, entirely optional addition.
4
Cook the linguine in plenty of salted water. Drain hot, toss with the sauce, and serve immediately.
Related pantry pastas
Spaghetti alla puttanesca
The same pantry, with tomato and chili added. See
the full recipe.
Spaghetti alle vongole
No capers or olives here, but the same instinct for a light, briny sauce built on very few ingredients. See
the full recipe.
Buon appetito.
