This is another perfect lockdown larder recipe. If you love anchovies, you’ll definitely have a tin or a jar or two of these in your cupboard, and everything else is pretty standard stuff standard stuff which most people will have in. It’s a Nigella Lawson recipe, which I did adapt slightly as I didn;’t have absolutely everything, but it turned out fine.
what you’ll need (serves 4-6 so adapt accordingly)
- 2 large onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- 5 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon soft light brown sugar
- 12 anchovies (or 1 x 60g / 2oz can in olive oil)
- 15 grams butter
- tiniest pinch of ground cloves – didn’t have cloves so omitted these
- 1 tablespoon water
- 125 millilitres full fat milk
- 500 grams linguine (bigoli, bucatini, perciatelli or other robust pasta) – just normal, bog-standard dried spaghetti
- 1 bunch freshly chopped fresh flatleaf parsley – no fresh parsley, unfortunately, the one thing I think it could have benefitted from
- Salt & pepper
It’s another very easy recipe. We did follow it to the letter, but I’m sure you could do it even quicker by just mixing the onions, garlic and anchovies into the cooked spaghetti, but the creamy sauce did make all of the difference and elevated it a little from just a pasta dish, to one with a bit of a wow.
what you’ll need to do
- Finely chop the onions & garlic and cook, in a little oil until soft, then add the brown sugar and cook for a further 10 minutes
- Chop the anchovies into very small pieces and add to the onion/garlic mix, until they start to disintegrate, then stir in the butter (and the pinch of ground cloves at this stage), followed by a tablespoonful of water
- When it is all combined, gradually stir in the milk, and when it is a puree, take the pan off the heat
- Cook the spaghetti and when done drain, then tip the anchovy & onion sauce into the pasta, mixing it round so that the strands are coated
- Season according to taste
- Mix the roughly chopped parsley into the pasta, keeping some aside
- Serve in warm bowls and sprinkle the remaining parsley over the top
