Pasta con le sarde
With another issue of the catalog just about wrapped up, my main goal was to relax this weekend. To that end, I spent a good portion of today reading, wandering around like a zombie, and napping. Waking refreshed and hungry (for tasty human braaains), I cast about my Bloglines folders looking for inspiration from the host of food bloggers I follow. Inspiration struck, as it so often does, at the feed of Molly of Orangette fame. Months ago, she wrote about a tomato sauce recipe, the simplest one in the world that also just happened to be swoonworthy. Since it required only four ingredients — canned tomatoes, butter, onion, and salt — I thought that would make for a perfectly quick and delicious lunch.
And then I realized I had other bits and pieces in my kitchen that would make good additions to the sauce. The basil in my fridge wasn’t getting any younger, so I thought a few leaves would lend a subtle flavor to the dish. Then I remembered the fennel in the crisper drawer sharing space with the Italian flat-leaf parsley, and brought those out to the counter, too.
Just then I spied some anchovies and locatelli on the upper shelves and shrugged my shoulders. Well, why not? And of course, when you have fennel and anchovies, it’d be a crime not to add sardines and golden raisins to bring the whole thing to a fabulous pasta con le sarde conclusion.
So that’s just what I did. Of course I added a few other things here and there as well, but the focus was still on the tomato sauce; it might’ve been more involved than the one I set out to make, but it was terrifically satisfying (and kept me from throwing out the contents of my crisper drawer next week).
recipe after the jump





















