Χόρτα βραστά με λεμόνι - Boiled Grass With Lemon

This recipe is included in my Spaghetti Alla Pouttanesca entry but I would like to re-blog it here for search engine reasons. This is a GREAT side dish that you will love. It is very simple to make and you can find this type of grass just about everywhere. If you choose to pick your own grass you must go to a virgin field and not your back yard or a field or a property where people will have added fertilizer or weed killer.

About 23 years ago my parents were visiting from Hellas. My wife and and I had just purchased a nice house in NY and we were trying to make it our home. It was summertime and my wife and I were outside working in the backyard, pulling weeds and putting them in garbage bags. Sometime later I turned and looked towards the house and I saw my parents standing behind the sliding door knocking on the glass trying to get my attention. I knew something was wrong and I ran towards the house to see what was wrong. As soon as I opened the door my parents yelled at me because they couldn't understand why I was pulling the grass from the ground and putting it in plastic garbage bags. To make the long story short, they told me that I was throwing away good food.

Fast forward many years to...yesterday, May 26, 2013, at the farmers' market in Rhinebeck, NY, I purchased two bunches of grass, a.k.a. χόρτα or ραδίκια. From now on I will refer to them as "grass" because it is just a generalization.

Here are the two bunches of grass I purchased. This grass MUST be washed thoroughly because it is just full of dirt.

Whore's Style Spaghetti - Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca

Leave it to the Italian prostitutes to come up with a crazy recipe name, Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, which literally means Whore's Style Spaghetti. Some say it refers to the spicy aroma produced by its ingredients that enticed passing customers. Others claim that this dish was the easiest thing they could prepare between customers. We cook it today because it has a remarkable flavor, is easy, and is made of ingredients easily kept on hand.

I had heard about this recipe many years ago when I lived in Hellas and this is a modified Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca. You could also read more about the origin and history of this recipe from the web or wikipedia.

I had everything in the butler's pantry needed to make this dish:

• spaghetti in this case I used angel hair pasta because my wife and I love them, 
• about 20 olives, 
• 1/4 cup olive oil,
• 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes,
• 1/2 a can of 6oz tomato paste,
• I also added two tomatoes grated that if I didn't use them, I would have to throw them out the next day, 
• a handful of capers (I used a 3oz bottle), washed with cold water,
• about 10-12 anchovies,
• six cloves of garlic,
• oregano

I grabbed a small container of anchovies and washed them in the sink under cold running water. They are too oily and salty and by washing them you remove the oil and most of the salt. This time I used a garlic press to cream them and I set them aside.