A juicy summer tomato
This is as much about sourcing and selecting as it is about cooking. It relies on a tomato that is soft-skinned, juicy and has minimal seeds – ideally a free-ranging, height-of-summer, at-its-peak heirloom tomato.
Juiciness is key as that’s what makes the sauce, so when prepping the tomatoes, save every last drop of the juice.
Since the star of the show is the tomato it is showcased it in its fresh state. Applying heat would alter its flavour so, the tomato flesh is left uncooked, and added right at the very end.
(This is also a moment of self-preservation as water boils and fresh tomato has high water content. If you’ve ever burned your palate on the tomato slice in a cheese toastie, you will understand.)
Once the tomatoes are sorted, find a sea-shell-shaped or similar pasta (instead of, say, spaghetti) to scoop up all those juices and pieces of tomato.
The picture in the first pairing (below right) shows the kind of pasta, and the pictures in the final pairing shows how it carries the tomato and sauce.
Chop the tomatoes and catch the juice
Work on a board that is big enough to contain all the tomato juices as you chop. Prepare 500g tomatoes by carefully cutting out the core and chopping into 1cm to 1.5cm pieces. Strain all the tomatoes juices in a bowl – this will form the basis of your tomato sauce and by the end of the chopping process you should have about 150ml of juices.
Create an aromatic base of garlic
Add five fresh, plump cloves of garlic, minced, and one tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil to a small stainless steel pot over low to medium-low heat. Cook (stirring now and then) until the garlic is softened but without colour (about 2 minutes).
Make a sauce of juices and butter
Add the tomato juices and turn the heat up to medium-high. Once the tomato juices have started to bubble, simmer and reduce until the juices look thickened and have reduced by about half.
Whisk in 20g (one and a half tablespoons) of cold, unsalted butter and season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Set aside. Taste it – this should be pure concentrated tomato!
Bring together the pasta and sauce
Fill a great big pot with water and bring the water to a galloping boil. Add 250g Conchiglie pasta, replace the lid, bring back to the boil and once the water is boiling again, cook the pasta until just short of al dente (around seven minutes for the pasta we used). While the pasta is cooking, gently tear up the leaves from a handful of basil leaves into the chopped tomatoes. When the pasta is ready, reserve half a cup of pasta water and drain the pasta in a colander.
Working quickly, add the pasta back to its pot and tip in the tomato and garlic sauce – scrape out every last bit. Briskly toss the pasta with the sauce over medium-high heat until it is well coated. If you’d like it more saucy or to get the tomato juices to bond better with the pasta, add some of the pasta water and cook, stirring, until the pasta water is mostly cooked away and all the pasta is nicely coated with sauce.
Finish with the tomatoes and basil
Briefly toss through the tomatoes and basil. Divide between two bowls, serve, and eat immediately. The picture (above right) is useful for showing the ‘hold’ the sauce has when it pools on a plate, but I’m still not sure what possessed me to garnish with the basil leaves as I certainly don’t do that when serving dinner!
The variation
Use the same method to make a pasta that smacks of Amatriciana in flavour but without having to buy a piece of guanciale. If there’s rendered guanciale fat on hand from making Carbonara, swop out the cold butter for cold guanciale fat. Use the fat instead of the olive oil too and briefly cook a little minced red chilli (according to the strength of the chilli and your taste) and some freshly ground black pepper with the garlic. And for the rest it stays the same.