More garden pasta

tomato-pasta-1

It’s spooky how much tomatoes like cream. This is linguini with fresh tomatoes in a creamy parmesan sauce.

Flash-sautée the tomatoes in a hot skillet (but not hot enough to smoke). Cook the tomatoes for only one to two minutes, just until they’re hot. Put them in a bowl and set them aside. Add some butter to the same skillet. Add cream, salt, pepper, and about a teaspoon of vinegar. Boil gently and stir with a whisk until the sauce thickens. Add grated parmesan and stir with the whisk until the parmesan is melted into the sauce. Add the cooked pasta and the tomatoes and toss it in the skillet until the pasta is covered with the sauce.

I did not peel the tomatoes. The skins curl up when the tomatoes are heated. I skinned the tomatoes at the table, as though I was peeling shrimp.

I still don’t know what I’m going to do with all the tomatoes. I ought be in the garden right now picking yet more more of them instead of sitting here in front of the computer.

4 thoughts on “More garden pasta”

  1. Your tomato dishes look so appetizing. Pasta never met a tomato it did not like. All my tomatoes are ripening at one time too. I had Caprese salad yesterday with large chunks of ripe tomatoes. Delicious. I have put whole, unpeeled tomatoes in a freezer bag and have frozen them. Not as good as fresh, but can be used in a sauce. Near the end of the season, my mother would wrap green tomatoes in newspaper and store them in a dark, cool place. She would have sliced tomatoes at Thanksgiving. Enjoy your posts.

  2. did you chop the tomatoes before you sautéed them? and roughly how much cream? Obviously I am an analytical left brained person!! this looks fabulous – I am even tempted to make some to freeze for a quick dinner this winter.

  3. Hi Trish… I sliced the tomatoes in bite-size chunks. I never measure! But I’d say be generous with the cream, enough to cover the pasta and the tomatoes nicely. Also, because some juice is certain to come out of the tomatoes, no matter how fast you flash-cook them, simmer the sauce down until it’s pretty thick, and also be generous with the parmesan to further thicken it. One of the things I’ve really worked on this summer is flash-cooking fresh vegetables so that they don’t get watery. I think the trick is to be quick, to use high-temperature oil and the highest temperature possible short of smoking, and to withhold the salt for as long as possible.

  4. thanks David – sounds heavenly! going to try it next week when the temps cool off a bit. with the heat this week all’s I can manage is a tomato sandwich.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *