Tomato beer puttanesca sauce

Pasta with tomato-beer puttanesca sauce

Adapted from Saveur’s “The New Classics Cookbook”

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

¼ cup capers

8 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

8 cloves garlic, smashed

6 oil-packed anchovy fillets, chopped

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (the original called for 4 Fresno chiles, but this was literally all I had in the house)

8 gherkins, chopped

2 red onions, chopped

1 28-ounce can tomatoes in juice

1 bottle dark malty beer

¾ cup chopped Kalamata olives

1 pound dried pasta, cooked to al dente

8 caper berries for garnish

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Method

Heat oil in four-quarter saucepan. Add capers, garlic, anchovies, red pepper flakes, gherkins and red onions. Cook over medium heat until onions are softened. Add tomatoes, breaking up pieces, and beer. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1½ hours over medium-low heat, or until sauce is thickened.

Remove from heat. Puree sauce in a blender or food processor. Return to pan, add kalamatas and keep warm while you cook pasta.

Add drained cooked pasta to pot. Add some of pasta cooking liquid as needed to make desired sauce consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve topped with caper berries and parsley.

Rating: Fine. A duskier, deeper and less brash flavor than your standard puttanesca sauce. It's the non fast-food version of the usual quick fix designed for, um,post-night shift. It was fine enough, but not sure it really brought enough to the party to justify the extra time. But the Warsteiner Dunkel we bought to use in this was tasty.