Rigatoni in rosé sauce (vodka sauce) with blistered cherry tomatoes

[shain]

One of my favorite pasta dishes, and a really simple one to make.

 

~5 serving (you know how much pasta you can eat  ).

 

• 400g rigatoni, or penne (or whatever pasta you want)
• 1 tbsp butter or olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced (~1cm) or thinly sliced
• ~ 300g ripe saucing tomatoes (2 large)
• ~ 450g cherry tomatoes, halved
• ~ 80ml cream (or twice that amount of half-fat cream)
• dried chili to taste
• salt to taste
• black pepper
• 1/5 cup vodka (optional)

To serve:

• Plenty of chopped chives
• Grated Parmesan cheese, around 30g
• A good wine for drinking  

 

 

• Arrange the cherry tomatoes in a wide shallow pot or a wide pan, cut side up. Place over high heat and cook until blistered, but not charred. Set aside.
• Heat butter/oil and saute the onion until lightly golden (I do so in the same pot).
• Blend together the cooking tomatoes (not the blistered ones!) and the garlic. Add to the onion.
• Cook over low heat, uncovered for apx 15 minutes until thickened.
• Add the blistered tomatoes, the cream, vodka (if using) and chili flakes.
• Cook the pasta shy of al dente, drain but keep some of the water.
• Add to the sauce and cook, adding cooking water as needed, until al dente. This takes a few minutes.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• For serving, add plenty of chives and Parmesan .

 

 

 

 

Also great with soft boiled eggs and a crisp warm bread.

Edited August 23, 2020 by shain (log)

[Duvel]

Wow ... 400g for 5 persons. In my household its 250g for 2 😉

[weinoo]

Sounds as if @shain is serving Italian primi-sized portions (if not just a little bigger than a primi).  Also sounds as if that much sauce might be enough to dress 650 grams or more of pasta, but that’s just me.

[blue_dolphin]

I generally go with 2 oz/serving so that would be enough for 7 of me!

[shain]

I often make this dish for supper, where 100g per person is too much for us, as we also have a salad and often some fruit for dessert. If we have it for dinner, which during weekends we prefer to have at lunch time, I'll go with 100 per serving.

Note that the picture is half a serving, we always have seconds.

Edited July 17, 2020 by shain (log)

[shain]

26 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Also sounds as if that much sauce might be enough to dress 650 grams or more of pasta, but that’s just me.

 

I promise you that it's not a saucy dish. There's a lot of tomatoes, but most are not made into a sauce, they remain intact.

If you make it and think that you have too much, you can use the extra to top poached eggs (I'll do that tomorrow, made a batch of sauce but only served two dishes).

[weinoo]

It definitely doesn't look overly saucy; I was just wondering about the quantity of tomato product. But I bet the cherries really wilt down. 

 

As they like giant pasta portions, plenty of Americans seem to like their pasta buried in sauce...I'm kind of a less is more person with pasta. Though obviously when it's the main course, gotta be more than 56 grams pp!

[weinoo]

Also it certainly holds true that some pasta shapes expand practically exponentially; I find that rigatoni (as above), fusilli and other larger shapes just grow and grow.  Like I can make 1/2 lb. of uncooked spaghetti and we can practically eat it all; if I make 1/2 lb. of rigatoni, we'll also be having it for breakfast and lunch the following day. 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I usually cook up about 6 oz pasta (170 gr) for the two of us for a main course  and assume a generous lunch portion leftover for “tomorrow”.     Depending on the pasta and the sauce, I may save the pasta separately covered in water.   It may resurface as fried pasta under runny eggs at breakfast.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)