This recipe, so evocative of southern Italy, comes from the Cavalieri family, who make Benedetto Cavalieri pasta, one of our favorite artisanal brands. Pastificio Cavalieri is located in Maglie, in the deep south of Puglia. The flavor combination of anchovies, black olives, and fragrant wild fennel pollen, with bread crumbs substituted for some of the grated pecorino on top, speaks directly of the way southern cooks create richness from poverty. It’s a quick, easy sauce to pull together at the last minute, as long as you have all the ingredients on hand.
Cooking chili and/or garlic in oil just long enough to flavor it, then discarding the aromatics and keeping the oil, is a method widely used in southern Italy where, contrary to popular impressions, aggressive flavors aren’t much appreciated.
If you don’t have fennel pollen, crushed fennel seeds may be substituted.
SERVES 6
2 garlic cloves, crushed with the flat blade of a knife
1 dried red chili pepper
About ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large yellow or red sweet pepper, sliced into thin strips
Big pinch fennel pollen, if available
10 to 12 anchovy fillets, chopped coarsely
18 small cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
¾ cup coarsely chopped pitted black olives
Sea salt
About 1 pound (500 grams) ziti
½ cup toasted coarsely ground bread crumbs
½ cup freshly grated pecorino sardo or pecorino toscano
Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.
Combine the garlic, chili, and 3 tablespoons of the oil in a skillet and set over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring, until the garlic starts to turn golden and the chili to crisp. Remove from the heat and discard the garlic and chili but keep the flavored oil.
Add the sweet pepper strips to the hot oil, along with the fennel pollen (if using), and return to medium-low heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pepper strips have softened, about 10 minutes. Then stir in the anchovies, crushing them into the oil with a fork.
Add the tomatoes to the peppers and anchovies with another 2 tablespoons of the oil. Cook a few minutes, just until the tomato pieces start to collapse, then stir in the black olives.
In a separate small saucepan, combine the bread crumbs with 2 tablespoons of the oil and set over medium heat. Cook, toasting until the crumbs are golden and crisp. Set aside.
Add salt and the pasta to the boiling water and cook following the directions here, until the pasta is almost al dente.
When the pasta is almost done, add a ladleful of pasta water to the skillet with the tomatoes and anchovies and bring to a simmer. Drain the pasta and turn it into the skillet, tossing to mix the pasta and sauce together. Turn into a warm serving bowl and top with the toasted bread crumbs and grated pecorino. Serve immediately.