Even though it is a cold dish perfect for summer picnics, I cannot help it but eat it also in winter because its sooo good, this, if you love garlic! For this recipe, I used tortiglioni pasta which is a variant of rigatoni but of course, any ridged short pasta would do to capture better the sauce.

Serves about 4 people

Ingredients

500g tortiglioni

6 medium to big Brandywine, Beefsteak or any other type of deep red tomatoes (pale tomatoes are much less flavourful and not suitable for this kind of sauce).

4 cloves of garlic

Chiffonade of basil (add as much as you like it)

Extra virgin olive oil

Pepper

Salt

Method

In a large pot, bring water to boil with salt and cook the tortiglioni until “al dente” (I can categorise the cooking time marked on any pack of pasta as slightly overcooked, so I never follow what’s written on it, but of course it is a question of taste).

Once cooked, I rinse the pasta in cold water to bring down the temperature.

Meanwhile in a saucepan, bring to boil some water and let the tomatoes cook for less than 1 minute, after which I plunge them into a bowl of cold water. This allows the skin to peel off in no time.

To avoid the sauce being too watery, dice the tomatoes, add a bit of salt, and set them in a strainer or colander with a bowl underneath to collect the juices. This way, you will have a more flavourful and denser sauce.

Finally, in a food processor, put in the tomatoes with the rest of the ingredients and blend well.

Store the sauce in the fridge.