My winter vegetables are barely ready for harvest and still growing and yet I am growing
increasingly impatient for a meal cooked with home grown ingredients. While we’re a little way off tomato season, glimpses of sunshine have called for a meal befitting of an Italian summer escape.
Due to Melbourne’s delightfully changeable weather, the heater has been running fiercely on alternate days, meaning the budget is a little tight. Thankfully the local farmer’s market had cherry tomatoes aplenty and I had tomato paste that had definitely been in my fridge for at least three months. A match made in heaven.
I’ve been having a sort of writer’s block when it comes to pasta recently and I feel like I often make the same type of dish with the same type of pasta. I’m also unbelievably biased towards some shapes (orecchiette, trofie to name a few) over the more traditional Australian supermarket varieties.
For this dish, I tried something new and opted for the aptly named ‘large shells’. It’s an important distinction that these shells are not enormous conchiglioni that can be stuffed with all manner of soft cheeses. Nor are they small shells which are so tiny I don’t see how you could stuff them with anything much other than sauce.
No, these shells are large shells, and they’re just the right size in a Goldilocks type of way to to perfectly cradle the cherry tomatoes and baby bocconcini that was calling me from the fridge.
Recipe – Serves four
Ingredients
- A large handful/bowlful of cherry tomatoes
- Four Roma tomatoes or similar gourmet type variety
- 2-3 tbs of tomato paste
- 1 tbs of chilli flakes
- 150ml of cream of your choice
- 25g of Parmigiano Reggiano
- 500g large shell pasta
- 150g of baby bocconcini
Method
- In a frypan on low heat, drizzle a healthy glug of good olive oil and fry the chilli flakes for a few minutes until fragrant.
- Add your tomatoes and cook down for about 10 minutes on a medium heat.
- When they’re starting to soften, add 2-3 tbs of tomato paste and cook for another 5-10 minutes (you’ll want to keep some of the cherry tomatoes whole.)
- Add your cream and stir until the sauce is a nice, rich colour.
- Meanwhile, put your pasta on to boil.
- Add your grated parmigiano reggiano to the sauce, allow it to melt slightly, then stir in.
- When your pasta is still al dente, add it to the sauce, mixing the dish until each shell is coated well and cradling a bit of the sauce.
- Take it off the heat and serve with a few spoonfuls of baby bocconcini, stirring to combine.
