Whose summer pasta is it, anyway?

I had a good giggle yesterday morning on reading Amanda Hesser's "Recipe Redux" story in the New York Times Magazine. Hesser, bless her young heart, dates the creation of uncooked tomato sauce for pasta to the early-to-mid-'90s, citing a 1996 New York Times recipe for "summer pasta" that involved as a sauce no more than chopped tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, salt and mozzarella. "After years of thinking that all pasta sauces were long-simmered affairs," she writes, "cooks were relieved to learn they they could simply chop a few tomatoes, add some seasonings and hot pasta and -- voilà! -- dinner."

I laughed because I had bought all the ingredients for the dish Saturday. I had the idea when I saw beautiful ripe heirloom tomatoes stacked up next to big bunches of basil at the supermarket. Now here was Hesser, saying one Pamela Sherrid came up with it in 1996.

I thought back to the year I started making that very sauce. I remember it well, because it was 1980, the year a friend gave me the just-published Time-Life "Pasta" book in "The Good Cook" series. I learned the recipe (sans mozzarella) and so much more from its pages, and have made it a dozen times every summer since. It couldn't be simpler: Chop peeled and seeded tomatoes, add a little minced garlic, salt, pepper, lots of torn basil leaves and a good dose of olive oil. Let it marinate for a couple of hours, then toss it with hot pasta.

It was a life-changing recipe, elemental and wonderful, and just about every good cook I knew in California in the early '80s made it. (Now and then I'd throw in some diced mozzarella, but I was never completely convinced by the cheese.) With the passage of time came better and better ingredients -- great fresh olive oil from Italy and Spain and California, better dried pasta, good sea salt -- and now in midsummer, the dish is positively brilliant. Last night I made it with those gorgeous heirlooms, garlic from the farmers market, a fantastic fruity olive oil from Greece, some nice torn basil, Maldon salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. I cooked some Rustichella d'Abruzzo pasta al ceppo, tossed it with the sauce and added some roughly chopped burrata, which went all gooey.

Try it. You'll think you're back in the summer of '96.

-- Leslie Brenner

Photos by Leslie Brenner

Comments

[Farid Zadi]

Salut Nancy

Yes, I do teach Algerian cuisine cooking classes. You can contact me via my website http://www.chefzadi.com and you also see a few foodcasts I filmed last weekend demonstrating a few Algerian dishes http://www.chefzadi.com/foodcasts/index.html These were filmed in French, I'm doing more in English.

[Nancy Thurston]

Fresh tomato sauces have probably been around for centuries....I have lots of friends with southern italian heritage, and they all have a salsa cruda in their rep! The cooked tomato or "spaghetti" sauces we grew up with in the 60s and 70s were considered quite refined, for the time! Salsa cruda, like bruschetta and other raw, simple dishes were considered "peasant food".

Enjoyed your insight on Algerian cuisine, Chef - I was brought up on Middle Eastern cuisine, mainly Egyptian and Lebanese. Do you offer any classes on Algerian cuisine? My dad would be so impressed!

[Farid Zadi]

Salut Leslie!

Thank you. I plan on dropping by often. I'm really enjoying the posts here. There is no Algerian battarekh available here, so I use one that's available at Mario's Italian deli in Glendale.

For clarification by grated tomato I mean grated against the side of a box grater against the large holes, discard the peel.

Another option includes adding very finely julienned or grated fresh fennel bulb and lemon zest to the salsa tomatish (no bottarga in this case). Make sure to use very fresh, young bulbs.

Enjoy!

A bientot
Farid

[Leslie Brenner]

Chef Zadi, thanks so much for stopping by! The salsa tomatish sounds fantastic, especially with the battarekh. Is there an Algerian battarekh available in L.A. or online, or do you use Italian bottarga?

[Farid Zadi]

Actually an uncooked tomato sauce for pasta is traditional to Algerian cooking as well. I guess it's one of those dishes that are invented more than once in different places. To make a salsa tomatish (tomato sauce) we take ripe tomato and grate it, add very finely minced garlic, spices are optional, etc... An interesting variation is to add battarekh (bottarga).

Enjoy!

[Amanda Hesser]

What a great idea! Oh, wait, this is the same recipe that we published in the New York Times the day before you did. Maybe not so original after that, huh? Thanks anyway.

[Leslie Brenner]

Thanks, Nathalie. Maldon salt is a really nice flaky sea salt from England--I usually buy it at Surfas in Culver City. Of course any good sea salt would be great with this.

[nathalie]

YUM! Your recipie sounds great. I've never heard of Maldon salt and will have to try and find it.