20-min Spaghetti with Creamy Olive Butter Sauce
Too tired to cook? I have the perfect Monday night pantry pasta for you
Ciao friends!
I hope you’re having a wonderful September wherever you are! As I send this, we’re on the Adriatic sea in the Emilia-Romagna region scoring freshly made piadine sandwiches (like a thick tasty pita), going for long sunny beach walks with Coco, and eating some of the best fresh strozzapreti pasta I have ever tasted. The most important event is yet to come - we’re here to support my partner, Giorgio, in the Cervia Ironman triathlon on Sunday afternoon!
I was nervous about the drive down from Como as there’s been tragically damaging floods inland, but we managed to avoid the high water and the seas here are calm. When we arrived late on Friday, I’d barely stopped the car before my son, Matteo, had grabbed Coco’s leash and jumped out, running for the long flat beach. I just want to hang onto these moments of pure boy and dog joy forever. So we’re savouring the softness of the sea air, the wind tousling our hair, and even the kilos of sand Coco inevitably tracks into our hotel room. It’s amazing to me how just 48 hours away can feel like a week.
Let’s talk pasta
But back to real life for a minute! I’ve turned to comfort food as the temperatures have cooled and I can finally bear the heat of my burners and stove again. The September rientro always brings memories of autumn in New York City for me. For a brief time, before my Italian husband and I married, we lived together on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was 2010. I worked full-time and Fabio cooked, and oh how he cooked. While my mother-in-law never instructed him directly, he was a studious watcher and absorbed all her recipes and methods.
In my Manhattan takeout and delivery world, dinner was suddenly homemade every night and there were delicious leftovers every day to take to work. My co-workers were jealous and wide-eyed at chicken drumsticks in spicy tomato sauce and broccoli pasta with garlic and anchovies. We all ate at our desks 99% of the time, chatting, typing, and eating over our laptops, big windows gazing out the busy harbour scene of the Staten Island Whitehall ferry stop. The heavenly Italian aromas wafting from my desk made their take-out ‘Just Salad’ salads look, well, like ‘just salads’. I felt lucky and treasured.
However, Mondays were Mondays. We were very in love then, and although I was spoiled with his cooking, we still kept Mondays easy with this creamy olive tapenade and butter sauce pasta. It became such a tradition that we nicknamed it “pasta del lunedì” aka Monday Pasta. Although the love didn’t last, the pasta recipe did, and I still call it pasta del lunedì.
This 20 minute pasta sauce mixes briny pate di olive with the creamy mellow sweetness of butter. Also, it’s only 3 ingredients and you probably already have the ingredients in your pantry!
We’ve found this simple, ready-made olive tapenade in small jars in NYC, Michigan, and rural Indiana, so I hope and suspect it’s easy to find where you are too - just a simple puree of olives, olive oil and salt. We would always serve it with a salad and some cheese, which, Italian-style, would come after the pasta. So easy. So good.
PS Who noticed that is not spaghetti in the photo? We ran out of dry spaghetti, pasta asciutta, this week. So I did that Italian thing where you mix a bunch of leftover extra pastas together. It was delicious and fun, but I prefer this sauce with spaghetti; it’s just the right balance of pasta with the delicate butter and tapenade.
pst! Scroll to the very bottom for the recipe and to download recipe pdf!
Schiacciata con l’uva
Another intensely autumn NYC involved an Italian bakery in my Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan. The bakery no longer exists in the churn of metropolis openings and closings, but they made schiacciata con l’uva every fall. I nicknamed it “crack” and talked about it to anyone who’d listen in September and October.
Early in the morning before work, I’d take my warm, freshly baked schiacciata to go with a paper cup full of coffee to sit on a park bench by the Hudson River to eat under the changing leaves.
Last weekend, Judy Francini, a cook, food writer and author in Tuscany, posted a recipe for this very thing. I made it immediately with the candy-like uva fragola or Concord grapes in my fridge. It was the everything I remembered: an addictively jammy, sugary, crunchy, bready dream. Grazie mille for your tips and fabulous, Tuscan-husband-approved recipe, Judy Witts Francini! 🍇
Exciting Things: Slow Food Terre Madre 2024
The 2024 Terra Madre Salone del Gusto will be held in Parco Dora in the Italian city of Turin from September 26-30. The conference name translates to Mother Earth Taste Salon. Just beautiful. The event will explore ‘how food can restore our relationship with nature’ with a combination of tasting events, dinners, and conferences. Food activist, Alice Waters, of Chez Panise and Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, will be there with many others discussing the future of food, nature, and sustainable food systems.
…and Jan Egan and I will be there! Will you be there too? I’m honored to have been selected as a delegate after my participation in their brilliant program: Feed the Change: Nourish Europe’s Future. The Slow Food movement and organization embodies all the principles I believe in. Food is political; how we eat can change the world. Hope to see you there!
Pimp My Pasta
Have you made last week’s pasta with salsiccia, leeks, and sundried tomatoes yet? Jessica Becker of Wanderlife did with the legendary jungle of kale she has lovingly cultivated in her garden. Jessica learned to cook in the bounty of Aix au Provence and is still passionately applying all she brought from France and her world travels to her kitchen in the midwestern United States.
“I just made this for dinner tonight - thank you!! It was really good. My family loved it. I added strips of kale from my garden, which just melted in with the leeks and all. I’m adding this to the dinner rotation list! The flavors are a little different, very rich, and good for hungry teens!” - JB
It’s a fantastic riff and true to the season. I’ll definitely try her kale version in the coming months. Tag me or send me a photo if you make it too or any of the other WPFI recipes in the archives!
Spaghetti with Creamy Olive Tapenade and Butter Sauce
Spaghetti con Pate di Olive e Burro
FOR 4 PEOPLE
The ingredients
· 400 g spaghetti
· 60g / 4 Tbls butter
· 8 Tbls olive tapenade (look for tapenade with ONLY olives, extra virgin olive oil and salt. Do not choose ones with vinegar. Choose the simplest you can find.
· Salt
· Olives to sprinkle on top (optional) – I like pitted Taggiasche olives, the little round dark ones from Liguria!
The method
1) Fill a big tall pot with water and salt and set on high heat stove burner. Taste the water to make sure it’s salty like the sea (as and add more salt if needed).
2) Put the olive tapenade, butter, and pinch of salt (or a bit more if your butter is unsalted!) into a big bowl. Slice your butter into smaller chunks so it will melt more quickly.
3) When the water boils, add the spaghetti and cook to the package time (al dente), stirring occasionally.
Pasta PSA: Don’t break your spaghetti! At the beginning of the cooking, stand next to your pot and gently coax the spaghetti to bend by pushing the ends down and maybe also using a big wooden spoon to push it into the pot. Then stir it until it’s not stuck together anymore. Note: don’t add olive oil to the water. This is not necessary and anyway won’t stick to the pasta.
4) Strain and immediately distribute pasta to the individual bowls and use 2 forks to toss, melting the butter. Once the pasta is evenly coated, TASTE IT. If you feel it’s a bit dry, add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and stir again. If you feel it needs a little salt, add salt. Eat immediately and enjoy the easiest pasta you will ever make on the happiest of Mondays or whenever you choose!
Buon appetito!
Serving tips:
· Serve with a small bowl of extra grated parmigiano reggiano or pecorino; it’s delicious and adds another level of salty umami savouriness
· If you have taralli, the little donut-shaped Italian crackers from Puglia, try breaking them up into little pieces and sprinkling them on top of the pasta just before serving. A big yum for texture and crunch!
· Sprinkle whole or chopped olives on top for a delicious, textural garnish
Salt: It’s important not to skimp. This salted water is adding a layer of flavor to your pasta and is critical to this dish.
Pasta: As this is a flavorful but delicate sauce, I don’t recommend other pasta shapes, as the ratio of sauce to pasta just isn’t right otherwise. This is a simple pasta; keep it simple!
Cream! I have seen other versions of this recipe using heavy cream and milk instead of butter. I haven’t tried this method, but I suspect it would be equally delicious to tame the briny olives. I love the sweetness of butter but let me know if you try the panna version!
Buon appetito!
x Lolly
Grazie for reading Weeknight Pasta from Italy! I always love hearing from you so don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, ideas, or photos of the fabulous pasta you made. Buon appetito! ❤️
Another for the TBM list, Lolly! I teach a wine class on Sunday afternoons at a college here and always come home STARVING. This might be my new “Sunday Pasta.” 😁
This sounds easy and delicious. Will give it a try!