Spaghetti with Fresh cherry tomatoes

ready in: 15/20 min — difficulty: easy peasy

ingredients for 4 people

method

  1. Add a pot of water to boil, it has to be big enough to contain the pasta, make it as the pasta inside (if spaghetti it's different but you know... a big pot.) and fill it with water up to 3/4 and put it to boil.
  2. in the mean time, wash the cherry tomatoes and cut them in 4, right after put a pan with a couple of spoons of cooking oil to heat up
  3. be careful to not start burning the oil, you notice that if the oil starts actually fuming, that's dangerous, don't breathe it and wait until it cools down a bit (so ofc turn off the stove) when the oil is hot enough and ready drop the tomatoes in, you will notice if the oil is warm enough because it's a lot more runny and less dense in the pan.
  4. when you drop the tomatoes let them rest for a bit and give them a good salt, this is beacuse the salt will take out itself the water from the tomatoes and will help make the sauce sauc-ier, after like a minute turn lower the stove where the tomatoes are, you don't want to fast cook them, they gotta go slooooow
  5. when the water boils salt the water (the quantity of the salt i think i did mention in the main post before heading to the recipes... go and check that.) when you salt the water it will stop boiling... wait until it boils again and drop the pasta!
  6. as the pasta boils be sure to stir from time to time so it doesn't stick to the bottom, and also after few minutes the pasta is cooking, add a bit of the boiling water with the pasta inside to the tomatoe sauce, like a ladle, this is for few reasons, first one, you add some salt to the boiling tomatoes which help with the taste, second and more secretly important, the pasta when boils leaves the gluten in the water, that is somehting that denses up, and that doesn't change to whatever it is in, SO if you add the water in the tomato sauce you just did it will help a bit to have a more dense sause that will grab to the pasta when eating
  7. follow the cooking time mentioned at the beginning for the pasta, and when it's ready strain it, but first if you want to be sure, save a small glass of boiling water IF you think it will be needed after, then, strain it and add it to the pan
  8. put the stove temperature of the tomato sauce to it's highest and keep stir the pasta inside, let it warm up properly and get hot, give it good 10 or 15 seconds, then turn off the stove, move away from the stove the pan and add a spoon of extra virgin olive oil and rip with your fingers the fresh leaves of basil in the pan, all togheter, and mix again for good 5 or 10 seconds (i am talking in seconds but trust me, 15 seconds of stirring are not that small amount of time.)
  9. serve it, and if you like it, add some grated cheese at the end.

$ don't worry if the first result might not impress you. the more you do the better it gets, this is a really good recipe to grasp the basics for cooking pasta, the rest becomes quite easier