"SIMPLE" Anchovy and foraged samphire spaghetti

 simple as......

Leafing through my copy of the latest Ottolenghi tome "SIMPLE", I stumbled upon a recipe that contained two of my favourite ingredients, samphire and anchovy.
Oh Yum!!! I felt tonights simple supper in the making and how simple would this be to create something so Algarvian, and with the key ingredient ripe and ready just a stones throw away.I headed down to the Sapal and foraged my first ingredient, samphire (salicornia europea). I have always had a taste for samphire grass well before the present mania for eating the hedgerows.Available almost all the year round,this is wild food for free globally.Anchovies are always on the shelf of my store cupboard and I was recently given a bag of Aleppo chilli flakes.There are very few things in an Ottolenghi cookbook which aren´t improved by a dusting of these.Add the anchovies, some garlic, lemon,parsley and white wine and you have the makings of a super supper packed with a really salty punch.

 Freshly foraged salicornia

Anchovy and foraged samphire spaghetti
This dish was something well worth trampling through the dry dusty mud for
serves four 
75ml olive oil
30g anchovy fillets in oil,drained and finely chopped ( about 8 or 9  )
11/2 tsp Aleppo chilli flakes,plus extra to serve
1 garlic clove,crushed
1 lemon,finely grate the zest to get 1 tsp,then cut into 4 wedges to serve
20g parsley,finely chopped
100ml dry white wine
250g spaghetti
250g foraged samphire,( salicornia ) 
salt and black pepper
Put the oil into a large sauté pan and place on a medium heat.
Once hot,add the anchovies,chilli flakes,garlic,lemon zest,half the parsley and agood grinding of pepper.Fry gently for 5 minutes,stirring frequently,until the anchovies have melted into the oil.pour in the wine and cook for 4-5 minutes,until thesauce has thickened and reduced,then remove from the heat and set aside while you cook the pasta.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the spaghetti until al dente.Thirty seconds before the spaghetti is ready,add the samphire( to the same pan the pasta is cooking in).Reserve a couple of ladles of the pasta water,then drain the pasta and the samphire.return the sauté pan of sauce to amedium heat.add the cooked spaghetti and samphire and toss to combine.If you need to loosen,add a little  of the reserved pasta water.Stir through the remaining parsley and another grind of pepper,then divide between four plates.Finish with a sprinkling of the extra Aleppo chilli flakes and serve with a lemon wedge on the side.