Summer Spaghetti
We eat a fair amount of spaghetti in our house. We eat a lot of pasta full stop actually. In winter we have lovely rugu but when the weather warms and there is suddenly an abundance of bright produce it is hard to go past a simple Summer spaghetti sauce.
This recipe has origins of the website Serious Eats where this sauce was originally paired with luscious ricotta gnocchi pillows. The sauce gradually migrated from being paired with gnocchi to being paired with spaghetti for easy Summer suppers.
I usually make this recipe for the two of us but feel free to multiply it to the number in your crowd. My usual rule is a punnet of cherry toms per person and a quarter of a packet of dried spaghetti per person. If making this for say four or more people you will need a wider pan so you don’t end up just sweating the tomatoes.
This version you see photographed we made while hidden away in the bush for a long weekend. We made the most of the good weather and cooked most of our food over the wood fire. If you have the opportunity to cook pasta like this I highly recommend it, it was next level delicious.
Summer Spaghetti
Serves two
Two punnets of cherry tomatoes
Enough olive oil to coat the bottom of your small skillet in a thin layer (roughly a quarter of a cup)
Cloves of garlic (I won’t tell you how to live your life but I like five), roughly minced
A handful of fresh basil leaves
250g of dried spaghetti
Malden salt flakes
Cracked pepper to taste
Heat a small skillet over a medium heat and bring a big pot of salted water to the boil.
Cover the base of your skillet with a thin layer of olive oil and bring that up to temperature before adding all of your lovely fresh tomatoes. Let the tomatoes start sizzling away before adding in your garlic and a sprinkling of sea salt flakes. Let the tomatoes naturally break down and release their sweetness and pectin into the oil. Gently stir the tomatoes every few minutes to prevent them from catching on the bottom of the pan. After around 15 minutes you can gently encourage the release of juices by pressing down on each tomato with a wooden spoon. Continue to cook for another 15 minutes until lovely and thick. Add the fresh basil leaves just before you add the spaghetti in the next step.
Add your dried spaghetti to the boiling salted water and cook until al dente. You can add a small splash of starchy pasta water to your sauce to help develop its texture. Tong the cooked noodles directly into the sauce and stir through to gently coat each strand in the lovely sauce.
Serve up onto two plates and sprinkle with parmesan and more fresh torn basil. Season with pepper.
Enjoy x
