Putain, puttanesca!

There's a necessary breathiness to a puttanesca sauce that comes from the immediacy of all those punchy ingredients, and a trick to making it taste fresh and vigorous: don't cook the garlic, add it raw, finely chopped at the end. Here's how, for two: chop a small onion and fry, along with 5 or so anchovies, in olive oil till the onion is translucent and the anchovies disintegrating. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, a generous tablespoon of capers and a pinch of dried chilli flakes. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until the sauce is fairly thick and reduced and the tomatoes have shed their tinny flavour. Finally, add a clove for finely chopped garlic and tear in a small handful of basil leaves (I didn't have any, it didn't matter). Toss with al dente pasta, grate over Parmesan if you like - I simmered some defrosted turkey meatballs we needed to eat in the sauce for a few minutes, and yes, bizarrely, it worked beautifully.