Pilchard puttanesca

1. Cook the pasta following pack instructions. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook the onion, garlic and chilli for 3-4 mins to soften. Stir in the tomato purée and cook for 1 min, then add the pilchards with their sauce. Cook, breaking up the fish with a wooden spoon, then add the olives and continue to cook for a few more mins.
   3–4 minutes1 minute
2. Drain the pasta and add to the pan with 2-3 tbsp of the cooking water. Toss everything together well, then divide between plates and serve, scattered with Parmesan.

Cooking notes

Pasta scales beautifully — water and salt should track the dry weight; sauce can be reduced slightly if you scale up beyond a single pan.

For volume-to-weight conversions of any ingredient — flour, sugar, butter, salts — use the ingredient converter. To translate the recipe's oven temperature between °C, °F and gas mark, see the temperature converter.

When you scale this recipe up or down, remember that cooking time does not scale linearly. A doubled cake takes longer, but not twice as long; a doubled soup takes roughly twice as long. The cooking-time guide gives sensible starting estimates by dish geometry.