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Vermicelli with Olive-oil, Olives, Capers, and Anchovies
Take one-half pound of vermicelli and cover it well with salted water. Cook for about ten minutes. While it is boiling put into a saucepan four tablespoons of olive-oil, three anchovies cut up fine with six olives (ripe ones preferable) and one-half tablespoon of capers. When these are fried add the vermicelli (well drained), mix well, and put the saucepan at the back of the stove. Turn the vermicelli over with a fork every few minutes until it is thoroughly cooked.
A plain southern Italian pasta sauce built entirely from the store cupboard. Two things need attention: the anchovies must not fry hard, and the pasta should not be cooked twice.
- The hinge: melt, don't fryAnchovy fillets should dissolve into warm oil over low heat, which takes two or three minutes. Held at a true frying heat they turn bitter and gritty, and the whole dish follows them.
- Vermicelli then and nowIn Italian usage vermicelli is a long strand slightly thicker than spaghetti, not the fine nested nests sold as vermicelli in some shops. Half a pound serves two generously or three modestly; cook it to the package time, not a flat ten minutes.
- "At the back of the stove"On a coal range the back was the coolest zone, used for holding food warm. On a modern hob that is the lowest setting, or the burner switched off entirely with the pan left on it.
- "Until thoroughly cooked"The pasta is already done when it goes into the pan. This final stage is about the strands absorbing the oil, so two or three minutes of turning is enough; longer and the vermicelli softens into paste.
- Pasta waterReserve a few tablespoons of the cooking water before draining. Added to the oil it emulsifies the sauce so it clings rather than pooling at the bottom of the dish.
- Olives and capersSix olives means whole ones, pitted and roughly chopped or torn. Salt-packed capers should be rinsed and squeezed dry; brined ones need only a rinse.
- SaltAnchovies, olives and capers all carry salt, so salt the pasta water normally but taste before adding any more at the end.
This belongs to the family of Italian pasta dishes for which the later alla puttanesca offers a parallel — sauces made from oil, cured fish and preserved vegetables that keep well without refrigeration and need no meat. That made them everyday food in the south, and also acceptable on the many meatless days of the Catholic calendar, when anchovies stood in for the flavour of pork or broth. Simple Italian Cookery was written for English-speaking households at a period when olive oil, capers and tinned anchovies were becoming available in American and British shops but were still treated as exotic; recipes like this one exist partly to demonstrate that four cupboard ingredients and a half-pound of vermicelli constitute a meal. The preference for ripe olives over green is worth noting — it may suggest a cook who wanted mellow fruit rather than the sharp brine of unripe ones.