Last Updated 09/02/2024

Covid is here, but so is summer and the tomatoes are still looking fine as ever. These are the star of the show here – perfectly red, ripe, juicy, sweet, savory gushers of nature… Kick those canned tomato pastes and sauces to the side, we want to drive home fresh, bright flavors to cut through the summer heat and allow our blessed tomatoes to shine.

I almost like to think of this recipe is a warm pasta salad, as opposed to a traditional pasta dish. The key here is to divide your tomato bounty in half… The first half is cooked in sputtering, hot extra virgin olive until blistered, browned, and heavily sweet and concentrated. This forms the base of your sauce – a deeply savory tomato lava that wraps itself around every little bit of pasta. The second half of your tomatoes come in much later, soon before your pasta enters the pot. We cook these just long enough for the tomatoes to lend themselves to the sauce, while still retaining a fresh-from-the-vine quality. On their own, these two halves are tasty, but when they come together with plenty of fresh mozzarella, basil, and olive oil, an extraordinary balance is struck, and you are left with summer pasta dish that is both fresh and deeply savory at the same time. Really, really good.

Ingredients

Serves 3-4

Half a box of bowtie pasta
2 giant handfuls of cherry tomatoes (Shaquille O’Neil’s hands)
2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced

½ ball of fresh mozzarella (4 oz / 120 grams), diced into bite sized pieces
Parmesan cheese
Lots of fresh basil
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method

Heat salted water over high heat. Once boiling, add dry pasta and cook until almost done but not quite.
Heat a saucepan with several glugs of olive oil over medium-high heat.
Once the oil is shimmering and lightly smoking, pour in half of your cherry tomatoes along with a heavy pinch of salt. Stand back because these will sputter aggressively.
Once the skin begins to blister, give the pan a shake and let the heat burst the tomatoes. Continue cooking until the bursted-out tomato innards reduce into an ooey-gooey, savory tomato lava.
Add sliced garlic and cook until softened.
Cut the rest of the cherry tomatoes in half and add to the pan. After a minute, add your pasta along with a ½ cup of pasta water. Cook until pasta is al dente, adding more pasta water if needed.
Turn off heat, toss in parmesan cheese, a pinch of black pepper, and an extra splash of olive oil. Season to taste.
When ready to serve, generously scatter fresh mozerella and basil over the whole thing. Avoid mixing in the mozzarella, as it will easily clump together when exposed to the hot pasta.
Serve with cold white wine and a green salad. Enjoy.