Celebrity square meals #36: Paul Nicholas's 'Pasta Puttanesca'
Serves two
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.This is perfect after a long, hard day of rehearsals, and it's about as delicious as quick, easy meals get.
It's not that I'm too lazy to cook a nice meal when I get home after a day's work, but I've never had the time to do much shopping, to search out tricky ingredients. And anyway, I've never been into that sort of cooking some men do to impress women (I rely on charm to do that).
It's an Italian classic [putanella translates as "tart", hence tart's pasta] but the best thing about this is you can vary it as you please, using whatever's in the cupboard.
200g dried pasta - fusilli and farfalle work well, but you can use spaghetti or whatever you have
A handful of black olives, stoned
2tbsp capers
One onion (it's OK to use white but a red onion is better)
Four anchovy fillets (lots of people hate them but I love them - they give any dish a kick)
2 large cloves of garlic
A little fresh ginger (unconventional, maybe, but vital if you ask me)
A jar of good passata
A little olive oil
First chop the garlic, ginger and anchovy fillets as finely as you can. Chop the onion too, and fry all of these together in the oil. Add the passata, capers and olives and turn down the heat.
At about this point, start cooking the pasta. When it's just about al dente, drain the pasta and mix it in with the sauce. Leave it for a minute more and there you have it - a delicious, quick meal, so you can spend more time eating it with your wife.
Paul Nicholas is touring in the comedy 'Mixed Feelings', which opens at the Richmond Theatre (020-8940 0088) on Monday.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments