Recipe is a big word here: it’s simply just pasta with a cold tomato sauce 🙂 but this doesn’t mean it’s not a great dish, not at all, it’s a great dish for those days when it’s very hot, imagine over 30 or 35 °C, when there is no air, when usually you don’t feel much hungry and the last thing you want is staying in front of the pans cooking 😀 yes, this is a perfect recipe for those days, and if you have good ingredients it will be always perfect! (Did I say perfect enough times? 😀 )

You need few things, and you can do it slooowly 😀 take your time, drink something fresh meanwhile, wait how much you want…you’ll enjoy even better this cold dish.

Tomatoes: the ones you prefer, just they must be well ripe, it’s important to have the best and really enjoyable flavor. If you prefer cherry tomatoes use those, or any other. I simply used the ones that were ready now in our garden. I suggest to remove the seeds and use just the pulp, it’s better (unless you use the cherry tomatoes).

Garlic: you can mince it if you like, or you can just put it to add its aroma but remove later (as I do), how you want. Just don’t exaggerate with it.

Oil: extra virgin olive oil of course, a good one. And don’t measure it, be generous with it 🙂

Pasta: I think a short type is better. Boil it normally as for any other Italian recipe.

INGREDIENTS (2 people):

• 180 g of short pasta (fusilli, penne, eliche, pennette, rigatoni, etc.)
• ripe tomatoes, how many you feel you can eat 🙂 we used 7-8 tomatoes like the ones in the photo (and if you prepare more you can always use this “sauce” over a bruschetta)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• basil leaves, as many as you want, I suggest to be generous also here 🙂
• a good extra virgin olive oil
• Parmigiano Reggiano scales 
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt

1. Start preparing the sauce, that will have to rest a bit to let all the ingredients combine well together. Wash the tomatoes, cut them in half and with a spoon you can easily remove all the seeds. Then cut the remaining pulp into small pieces, a put in a bowl.
2. Peel the garlic cloves and hit with the blade of a knife, we’ll remove it later, it just has to release its aroma now. Add in the bowl.
3. Add the basil leaves (you can break with your hands), season with some black pepper and salt at your taste (but consider that the Parmigiano Reggiano is also salty), and add a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil. Mix well together and let it rest for at least 20-30 minutes.
4. Boil the pasta in salted water, and when it cooked simply drain it as you normally do and pour it over the sauce (be sure the bowl is large enough), and mix well together, maybe adding some more extra virgin olive oil if you think.
5. I suggest to wait some minutes, so also the pasta cool down a little bit…it’s a hot day, remember? 😀
6. Then serve it and add Parmigiano Reggiano scales, cut fresh in that moment 🙂 if you have a good and fresh white wine it’s really perfect 😉 This is really easy, and really fresh, with such a fresh aroma (sorry if I repeat, but it’s really fresh 😀 )

————————————————————————————-

Products used in this recipe:

Pasta: Eliche from Pastificio Gentile

Tomatoes: from our garden

Basil: from our garden

Extra virgin olive oil: as always, the one produced by my father with olives from his field by lake Iseo (Italy)

Parmigiano Reggiano: 24 months aged.