Gordon Ramsay’s puttanesca needs nothing fresh except a lemon and parsley. Tinned tomatoes, tinned tuna, anchovies and capers make the sauce. A black olive gremolata goes on top, and it’s ready in about 15 minutes.
Ramsay put it in Ramsay in 10 as Tuna Puttanesca with Black Olive Gremolata, calling puttanesca one of the greatest store-cupboard standbys to have up your sleeve. The tuna is his addition to the classic, turning a sauce into dinner.
Everything hangs on the anchovies going in first. Crushed to a paste in hot garlic oil before the tomatoes arrive, they dissolve into the backbone of the dish. Nobody at the table will name them, everyone will taste them.
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Gordon Ramsay Tuna Puttanesca
Course: DinnerCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy4
servings5
minutes10
minutes460
kcal15 min
Tuna Puttanesca with Black Olive Gremolata from Ramsay in 10. Naturally dairy-free, built from tins and a lemon, with the gremolata lifting it out of pantry-dinner territory.
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp chopped red chilli or ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
4 anchovy fillets
1 x 400g (15 oz) can of chopped tomatoes
400-500g (14-18 oz) fresh pasta, e.g. paccheri or fusilli, or 300g (11 oz) dried pasta
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp fine capers
1 x 145g (5 oz) can of tuna
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the olive gremolata:
Zest of 1 lemon
30g (½ cup) finely chopped parsley leaves, plus a few whole leaves to garnish
6 pitted black olives, chopped
Directions
- Build the flavour base: Place a large non-stick frying pan over a high heat and coat the bottom with a thin layer of oil. Peel and crush or grate the garlic, add it to the hot oil and toast a little. Add the chilli and anchovies, crush the anchovies to a paste with a spoon, and cook for 1 minute.
- Simmer the sauce: Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and stir well. Reduce the heat and leave to simmer until needed.
- Make the gremolata: Mix the lemon zest, chopped parsley and olives in a bowl. Set aside.
- Boil the water: Fill the kettle and bring to the boil. Pour into a saucepan, season with salt and return to the boil.
- Cook the pasta: Add the pasta and stir to separate. Cook for 2 minutes, or as the packet says.
- Combine: Drain the pasta, reserving a little of the water. Add the pasta and reserved water to the tomato sauce and toss to coat.
- Finish: Stir in the lemon juice, capers and tuna, then spoon into bowls.
- Serve: Top each bowl with a spoonful of gremolata, a drizzle of olive oil and a few parsley leaves.
Notes
- Buy good-quality, sustainably sourced tuna in olive oil, the book is firm on it. The dish is naturally dairy-free, no cheese anywhere.
FAQs
Is it really ready in 10 minutes?
Only if you play it the book’s way: prep done before the clock starts, and fresh pasta in the pot. Fresh paccheri cooks in 2 minutes where dried takes 10 or more. With chopping and tin-opening counted, 15 to 20 minutes is the honest number.
The kettle trick saves real time though. Boiling the water in the kettle first, then pouring it into the pan, beats waiting for a cold pan to boil.
What is a black olive gremolata?
Ramsay’s black olive gremolata is lemon zest, chopped parsley and chopped black olives, replacing the garlic of a classic gremolata. The garlic already went into the sauce, so the topping brings what the sauce can’t, a raw, sharp, salty hit on every forkful.
Don’t skip the zest. The juice goes in the sauce, the zest goes in the gremolata, one lemon does both jobs.
Do the anchovies make it taste fishy?
No. Crushed to a paste in the oil, they dissolve completely and read as depth, not fish. That’s their classic puttanesca role.
They behave differently in his sardine pasta, where the fish stays in chunks on purpose. Dissolved anchovies for seasoning, whole sardines for texture, two different jobs from the same shelf.
Why tinned tuna, and can I use fresh?
Tinned is the point, this is a store-cupboard dish, and the book asks only that it’s good quality in olive oil. Fresh tuna would be wasted simmered in tomato sauce. If fresh is what you’re after, his sesame tuna steak treats it properly, seared 30 seconds a side.
For tinned tuna in full comfort-food form, the tuna pasta bake goes the other direction, béchamel, Cheddar and the oven.
Which pasta shape works best?
The book suggests paccheri or fusilli fresh, or any dried shape you have. Wide tubes like paccheri catch the sauce and the tuna flakes inside them. Whatever you own works, this dish doesn’t judge.
From the same book, his green pasta uses the identical fresh-pasta-and-kettle setup for a kale sauce. Same speed, opposite colour.
