Spaghetti with Puttanesca Sauce

Tonight, I decided to make Spaghetti with Puttanesca sauce. This is a good dish to make during the middle of winter because you don't need the freshest produce. Canned plum tomatoes work very well with this dish and all of the other major components (garlic, shallots, capers, olives, and crushed red pepper) are available year round and tend to keep a long time in the pantry or refrigerator.

I also had some leftover parsley from another dish I made and decided to chop it up and throw it on top of the dish. In hindsight, the dish would have probably been served better with a flat leaf parsley or fresh basil that had a little more bite and flavor than curly parsley. Regardless, the parsley gave the dish some herbaceousness to counterbalance the brightness of the tomatoes, the tartness of the capers, the salt of the olives, and the heat of the red peppers. I even tossed some freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano on top as well, but actually preferred the spaghetti without it. There is so much going on in the dish as is that the Parmesan clashed with all the other flavors. Otherwise, I thought it was fairly successful (if a bit messy) and would recommend it. Just don't oversauce.