Wednesday, April 8: Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes
Matt and I ate the entire pot of this pasta tonight — let that tell you how good the sauce was. Roasted a bunch of fresh grape tomatoes with a ton of olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt until super reduced and flavorful, then added a pound of perfectly al dente rigatoni, a pat of butter, and a few healthy splashes of pasta water. After stirring over low heat, this amazing sauce was created — coating each noodle. God dam was it delicious!
Note: Roasting is a great way to use off-season tomatoes — it concentrates their flavor and makes them taste extra sweet and delicious. I amplify this by using grape tomatoes, which are naturally sweeter and good all year around (as opposed to the large varieties of tomatoes, which are really only good for about a month in late summer!).
First get your tomatoes roasting! Preheat oven to 425. Add 1.5 pounds grape tomatoes (sliced in half) in a large oven-safe pot or baking dish. Smash and peel 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, then add to pot with the tomatoes, along with a large pinch of kosher salt and a pinch of red pepper flakes (you can also add your favorite dried herbs like thyme, basil, or Italian seasoning — I kept it simple tonight!). Drizzle in a lot of olive oil (I pour straight from the bottle but I’d guess it’s somewhere between 1/4-1/2 cup) and give a good stir. Place pot or dish in oven and roast for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. You’ll see that after the first 15 minutes, the tomatoes are swimming in liquid, but by the end of the 45 minutes the liquid will have greatly reduced and you’ll be left with a very concentrated, flavorful tomato confit. (If you drag your spoon against the bottom of the pot, it should leave a clean trail that very slowly fills in with the thickened juice/oil.) At this point, the garlic will be very soft and you can smash the cloves into tiny pieces to help the disperse into the sauce.
While the tomatoes are roasting, boil one pound of pasta (I used rigatoni tonight, but spaghetti would also be great) in a pot of salted water to a minute shy of al dente. When finished, you can either drain, reserving 2 cups of the cooking water — or do as I do, and add directly from the water to the sauce using a spider (this requires you to time it so the pasta isn’t done until the sauce is out of the oven). Whatever you do, just be sure to have plenty of pasta water on hand to help create the sauce. Concentrated roasted tomato confit + pasta water = delicious sauce!
When tomatoes are finished roasting, place pot on the stove over medium low heat (if you cooked tomatoes in a baking dish, transfer to a pot large enough to fit and toss a pound of pasta in, and place on stove). Add your cooked pasta plus some of the pasta cooking water (start with 1/2 cup and go up from there). It will seem too watery at first, but the pasta will continue cooking in the sauce, absorbing water and releasing starch to thicken. Just keep tossing! Add 2 TB of butter and toss to melt — this will help make a glossy, emulsified sauce. Toss some more, adding more pasta water if it starts to get dry, until a beautiful thickened sauce coats each noodle. You want it to end on the looser/saucier side, as the pasta will continue to absorb liquid as it sits. Taste to make sure pasta has finished cooking to al dente, and season with additional salt and pepper.