summer spaghettini
For years I’ve been building a restaurant that is vaguely Mediterranean, mostly Italian, but also not entirely anything because it isn’t real. Without capital to invest, the only tools I have to build it are my imagination, or The Sims 3.
Inside my restaurant are all the things I hope remind my friends of me: toffee leather chairs, farm-y wood tables, brutal iron fixtures, big overwrought mirrors hulking by the bathroom, empty wine bottles from important nights tucked into the pockets of the walls, worn ceilings smooth and soft like a cave. The lights are so dim they are more orange than yellow, yet you’ll still be able to read the menu, as there are enough glass votives lit to burn the place down more than once.
Out back is a simple garden with string lights and white marble tables and plants someone else keeps alive. When the weather is warm, this is where you will order one of my limited-time seasonal specials, which is Summer Spaghettini.
This dish is summer’s answer to my mother’s winter red sauce. While lighter and brighter, it is still A Lot. Her sauce is a gravity blanket and mine is the slap of a low-grade sunburn. It’s acidic and zesty with an aggressive amount of garlic. It can be spicy, depending on how we feel that day. But despite the intensity level, it is not unbalanced, leveled out by a splash of cream stirred in at the end before being jolted back into aliveness with a hit of red wine vinegar. Shower it in basil and cheese at the end, though, and it will seem more approachable somehow, almost ordinary. This is why I sometimes paint my nails pink-neutral or wear an innocently cute hair clip to work. Don’t be fooled.
Though definitely not basic spaghetti, the actual technique is moron-simple. You don’t do anything to the tomatoes besides slather them in oil and butter. The garlic doesn’t need to be peeled or chopped. Save a splash of pasta water and the sauce creates itself. While any long pasta will work, spaghettini—not quite as heavy as spaghetti (it’s summer, after all) but just thick enough not to overcook like cappellini will sometimes do—is the one I most prefer. It’s sometimes called Thin Spaghetti. Cappellini is a solid second choice.
I recommend you serve the finished dish in its hot skillet, taking dramatic forkfuls (plate optional) and sipping chilled red while the sun goes down.
RECIPE
The alfresco pasta you’ll have on repeat all summer long. Summer tomatoes and whole cloves of garlic roast together in an olive oil and butter bath into a fragrant sauce, enriched with a splash of cream and brightened with a hit of red wine vinegar before being tossed with spaghetti tangles, fresh basil, and shaved parm.
Effortful time: 5 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes
Serves: 2-3
YOU NEED
2 pints cherry tomatoes
10 cloves of garlic, woody end trimmed off but left in the skins
2 tbsp. butter, cut into 8 cubes
2 tbsp. olive oil
Pinch of salt
Fresh cracked pepper
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 small bunch basil, roughly torn
8 oz long thin pasta of your choice, I like spaghettini
MAKE IT
Combine your sauce ingredients. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. In an oven-safe pan, toss the tomatoes with the oil, butter cubes, garlic in skins, salt, and pepper. Make sure everything is coated.
Roast it. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the tomatoes have a very slight browning on them and have collapsed to release a lot of liquid.
Prep for pasta time. A few minutes before you take the tomatoes out, boil and salt water for pasta. You will want to finish your sauce before you put the pasta in.
Disrobe your garlic. Once out of the oven, use tongs or a spoon to remove the garlic cloves—the skins will slip right off. Toss the paper and gently mash the garlic.
Finish your sauce. On the stovetop with no heat on, stir in the cream and red wine vinegar until the sauce is bright orange and even more liquid is released.
Cook your pasta. Put in the pasta and cook until just al dente. For spaghettini, this is typically only a couple of minutes, for cappellini, one minute is usually enough. Keep your pasta water.
Sauce and season your pasta. Quickly use tongs to move all the pasta into the tomato pan. Pour in a small amount of hot pasta water; this will bind with the oil and butter and gloss the sauce. Toss it all together well, then add the basil and give it a few more twirls. Add more pasta water if it looks dry.
Serve it up. Top with optional chili flakes and not-optional good shaved parm. Grilled chicken, as pictured, is not unwelcome either.
