Ingredients (8)
- 100g of dried pasta
- clove of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- medium tomato or 2 roma tomatoes if available
- 1 tsp of sugar (optional)
- 2 pinches of salt
- pinch of pepper
- parmeggiano regiano to taste
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Since I started working from home, I tend to cook my lunches (rather than nuke them), but I still want them to be fast and easy. Pasta’s great for that, since it takes about 10 minutes to make, but any sauce that doesn’t come out of a jar tends to be more of a production than I want to deal with at lunch.
This sauce was put together to be suitable for a single portion of pasta, and to take no more time to cook than the pasta. The instructions are more detailed than usual, if only because that’s the precise order I do things in to fit everything into the allotted time.
Instructions
- 1Fill the large pot with water, add a pinch of salt and set it on high heat to boil.
- 2Set the small pot over medium heat to warm.
- 3Peel and finely slice the garlic.
- 4Throw the garlic in the small pot and add the olive oil. Stir and leave to sizzle.
- 5By this point, the water in the large pot should be near boiling. Score an X on the bottom of your tomato and use the slotted spoon to lower it into the water in the pot.
- 6Count to 20.
- 7Remove the tomato using the slotted spoon and put it on your cutting board.
- 8Add pasta to the boiling water (stir it occasionally), turn the heat down to medium and let it boil.
- 9Turn the heat under the small pot up to high.
- 10By the time you’ve put the pasta in the boiling water, the tomato is cool enough to touch. Peel off the skin from the score marks you made. It should come off easily.
- 11Dice the tomato into a small dice.
- 12Add half of the tomato to the small pot, which should be sizzling, but not yet burning. Instant steam should spring up.
- 13Add salt and pepper and optional sugar and stir vigorourly with the metal fork for about a minute. Mash the tomatoes up as you stir to help break them down.
- 14Add the rest of the tomatoes, lower the heat to medium-high and let the sauce boil together until the pasta is done, stirring occasionally. If the sauce starts to get dry (that’s actually a good sign!) add some water from the pasta pot to thin it out again, a soup spoon or two at a time.
- 15When the pasta is cooked, drain it, return it to the pot, then pour the tomato sauce over it from the other pot. Toss them together.
- 16Sprinkle parm to taste
- 17Taste
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