Anchovies, onions, black olives, garlic, San Marzano tomatoes
Lately I’ve been following the Hulu cooking videos by Lidia Bastianich. The recipes are simple and you get a visual tour of small Italian towns or locales. Afterward I look up the interesting recipes on Lidia’s website.
Today I tried her side dish, Zucchini with Anchovies and Capers. I substituted black gaeta olives for the capers and should have left out the salt or cooked more zucchini. I had leftover oil from that dish which smelled smoky, salty, and sweet.
Since I don’t like throwing out oil (it’s messy), I decided to use the leftover oil to make a sauce with tomatoes, onions, and olives. This turned out to be a blend of two recipes: Sauce from tomato and onion pasta dish and Sauce with anchovy-onion for pasta.
It was tasty over linguine (al dente <3), topped with some of the leftover zucchini from the first recipe. I would make this sauce again but put more chopped anchovy into the sauce for pasta.
I bought the tomatoes and anchovies from the local Italian deli. I “splurged” and spend $1-2 extra on each ingredient (avoiding the very cheapest ingredient options). For ex., I like the Rega San Marzano canned tomatoes which cost $2 more than Cento tomatoes but I think taste a little lighter and sweeter. I tried Agostino Recca Anchovies and liked their smoky, ocean flavor. The local Trader Joe’s has been carrying California olive oil since early this year. It tastes more flavorful than the less expensive Italian olive oils. I’ve been using California olive oil as the base for pasta sauces.
I actually don’t love the taste of natural tomatoes. Towards the end of the sauce reduction, I add several spoonfuls of my favorite jar spaghetti sauce. The end result is not totally pure but it is chunky with fresh ingredients and adjusted towards my palate. Maybe someday I will be able to enjoy sauce that is purely from the canned tomatoes and juice.
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