La Calamarta

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5 from 1 vote

A delicious traditional seafood pasta dish from Naples made with calamari and calamari shaped pasta.

Prep Time15

Cook Time30

Total Time45

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Campania, Italian, Southern Italian

Keyword: La Calamarta

Servings:

Calories: 591kcal

Author: Jacqui

Ingredients

400 g calamarata pasta
2-3 fresh squid (calamari) (medium size)
500 g Piennolo or cherry tomatoes
1 cup dry white wine
2 large garlic clove peeled
1 handful fresh parsley chopped
½ fresh red chilli pepper (peperoncino) stripped of seeds & chopped
3-4 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
salt for pasta and to taste
black pepper to taste

Instructions

Start by cleaning the squid. Rinse well under running water, remove the head and the tentacles (keep these) the internal cartilage and the skin.
Cut the body into rings of the same width as the pasta and the tentacles into small pieces.
Put a pan of water on to boil for the pasta. Add salt when it startss to boil and bring to the boil again.
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan or skillet and then add the garlic cloves and the chopped red chilli pepper.
Fry on low heat for 5-10 minutes. Add the squid and a pinch of salt and cook for a few minutes more, (until the calamari becomes white)
Turn up the heat and add the glass of white wine. Once the alcohol has evaporated, add the vine/cherry tomatoes cut in half.
Lower the heat and simmer the sauce for about 10-15 minutes until it reduces and then remove the garlic.
In the meantime, cook the pasta al dente according to the instrustions on the packet and drain when cooked.
Add the pasta directly to the pan with the sauce and mix together well. Add plenty of chopped parsley.
Serve immediately! (If you wish to serve the dish later, reheat in the oven wrapped in baking paper or aluminium foil - al cartoccio)

Notes

If you cannot find calamarata pasta you could also use paccheri which are bigger, but then do not cut the calamari to rings the size of the pasta. The rings will have to be smaller.
If you cannot find fresh calamari, frozen can be used, but not ready cut rings. Whole calamaris would be better.

For this recipe, I have used black calamarata pasta, plain and a mixture. All these combinations were delicious but I particularly liked the way the dish looked with the mixed pasta.

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