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04/09/2002 Archived Entry: "Two Cans Are Better Than One"

I crashed on Sunday afternoon, meaning I couldn’t budge from my bedroom. I turned on the TV and watched the Food Network, which always feels like homework, and I cleaned the top drawer of my night table, one of the several black holes in my life. I never can tell what I am going to find in that drawer. It could be something pleasantly surprising, but more likely it is something I have stashed away to avoid confronting it.

Finally I was hungry. Needing comfort after an afternoon like that, I decided a bowl of spaghetti with tomato sauce would hit the spot. Most unfortunately, my cupboard was bare. I had not even one can of pelati – Italian peeled plum tomatoes. This is extremely unusual. I would have said it is impossible for me to run out of canned tomatoes, except that it obviously wasn’t. All I could find was a small can of “hillock” cherry tomatoes, pomodorini dei collini in Italian, the small, thick-skinned tomatoes you often see hanging on the sides of houses in Southern Italy. I can make excellent spaghetti sauce with them, but one 14-ounce can of cherry tomatoes was not enough for the amount of sauce I needed to make, enough for two grand portions of pasta.

Then I noticed a 14-ounce can of roasted peppers. I would not buy canned roasted peppers. I like them fresh and sweet, preferably in season in the summer. I got both of the cherry tomatoes and peppers, however, through a Neapolitan promotion in New York a couple of months ago. Why not eat them?

Two cans are better than one, I always think, especially with a little doctoring. I tasted the roasted peppers. They weren’t sweet. In fact, they were a little bitter. I figured I could compensate.

Roasted Pepper and Cherry Tomato Sauce
(Two Cans Are Better Than One)
Enough for 1 pound of pasta

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 large cloves garlic
Big pinch hot red pepper flakes
1 14-ounce can roasted, peeled sweet peppers
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons salted capers, well rinsed
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon oregano
1 14-ounce can Italian cherry tomatoes

I covered the bottom of a 10-inch sauté pan with olive oil. I’d say it was about 3 tablespoons. I smashed three large cloves of garlic under the heel of my hand and peeled them. I cooked them slowly in the olive oil with a big pinch of red pepper flakes. When the garlic was tender, I pressed it into the oil to release its flavor in the oil. Normally, I would then remove the garlic, but this night I left it in.

Meanwhile, I had diced the red peppers – cut them in 1/2-inch strips, then crosswise into 1/2-inch dice. When the garlic was fully tender, but not colored, I added the peppers to the oil and let them cook for 2 or 3 minutes over slightly increased heat. I added about a half teaspoon of salt.

Then I added the can of cherry tomatoes, juice and all, plus 3 tablespoons of well-rinsed salted capers, and a big pinch of the oregano that I always bring back from Italy. It is sweeter than the oregano we buy in the supermarket – or anywhere for that matter – tasting and smelling more like strong marjoram than oregano. Marjoram and oregano are first cousins, so that makes sense. If I had fresh parsley or basil in the house, I would have added one of them instead. If you don’t have any of the above herbs, just don’t add anything.

I barely cooked the tomatoes. All I did was bring the sauce up to a simmer. (Remember, canned peppers and tomatoes are already cooked.) Then I let the sauce sit without heat under it until about 3 minutes before the pasta was ready to be drained. At that point, I turned the heat on again and brought it back to a simmer.

I used a dried, but handmade Neapolitan-style fusilli I happened to have in the house. This type of fusilli is a ribbon pasta that has been coiled around a rod. It is spirals, but spirals of flat pasta. I wanted a long pasta – remember, I was itching for spaghetti – but I wanted one that would catch the chunkiness of my sauce. The fusilli ended up to be perfect, but regular fusilli or any tubular macaroni would have been good, too – such as penne, or ziti, or rigatoni, or bucatini, which is the spaghetti-length macaroni with a tiny hole.

Two cans are better than one.

I admitted on the radio that I have several such dishes I like to make. Here are some others:

A can of tuna in olive oil, drained and flaked, mixed with a can of Sicilian caponata, the eggplant appetizer. If I have the ingredients and the inclination, I might embellish that with diced red onion or scallions, and a little diced red or green pepper.

A can of tuna, drained and flaked, mixed with a can of cannellini beans, so-called white kidney beans. Or, even better, the tuna tossed with chickpeas, which I think are a better canned product than the usually too-mushy-for-salad white beans. If I have the ingredients and the inclination, I might embellish that with diced red onion (or any onion), too; and some fresh parsley. A drizzle of my best extra-virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice makes it a real treat.

I asked my radio audience for some two cans are better than one ideas, and here’s what they can up with.

A can of tuna, a can of drained artichokes, and a package of cream cheese put in the food processor will make a sort of pate. You can do the same thing with canned asparagus. In What To Cook When You Think There’s Nothing In The House To Eat I suggest a can of tuna or sardines processed with cream cheese, but I never thought of adding canned artichokes or asparagus. I’m skeptical, because I am not really fond of those vegetables in a can, but you never know.

A can of tuna with a can of tapenade, heated together gently with a little extra, extra-virgin olive oil sounded more my speed – as a sauce for macaroni.

Mix a can of drained black beans with a can of diced tomatoes. Garnish with fresh chopped cilantro and diced fresh avocado, maybe some chopped onion. Use this on or with grilled chicken, with melted cheddar cheese if you like.

And, finally, here’s one I can’t wait to try: A can beets dressed with a few canned anchovies, olive oil and vinegar.