Rigatoni pomodoro

This is a quick and light dish easily pulled together, especially if you have a batch of Napoli tomato sauce in the freezer and some dried rigatoni in the cupboard.

Rigatoni pomodoro. Credit: Murdoch Books / Mark Roper

• serves

  2

• prep

  5 minutes

• cook

  15 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 5 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to serve
• 1 small clove garlic, finely grated
• 200 ml (7 fl oz) Napoli tomato sauce (see below)
• 225 g (8 oz) quality dried rigatoni
• 2 tbsp finely grated parmesan
• 4–5 basil leaves

Napoli tomato sauce

• 80 ml (⅓ cup) olive oil
• 1 brown onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 400 g (14 oz) tins of peeled tomatoes, ideally San Marzano
• basil leaves from 2–3 sprigs
• sea salt

This dish will take about 15 minutes if you have Napoli sauce already made or about 1 hour 35 minutes if starting from scratch.

Instructions

1. For the Napoli sauce: Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat, then add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and translucent, around 6–8 minutes. Add the tomatoes and stir well, then bring to a slow simmer. Turn the heat down to low and cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to make sure the sauce doesn’t catch on the bottom.
2. Taste and season with salt, then take off the heat and let the sauce rest for 15 minutes before you add the basil. We normally pass this sauce through a vegetable mill while it’s still hot. If you don’t have one, you can just use a whisk to crush the tomatoes – don’t be tempted to blitz the sauce with a blender, or you’ll lose its pleasingly rustic texture.
3. For the rigatoni pomodoro: Warm the olive oil in a pan over medium-low heat, add the garlic and cook gently until the garlic has just softened but not coloured. Add the tomato sauce and bring to a slow simmer.
4. In the meantime, cook the rigatoni in plenty of boiling salted water until al dente, according to the instructions on the package. Drain the pasta (reserving some of the pasta water) and add to the sauce, then toss everything together for 30 seconds until the pasta is well coated. Add the parmesan and basil and toss a couple more times, adding a little of the reserved pasta water to adjust the consistency of the sauce, if needed. Serve in warmed bowls and finish with a drizzle of olive oil.

Note

• If you feel like making your own rigatoni, follow the same method as for the garganelli, but cut the pasta into 4 cm x 3 cm (1½ inch x 1¼ inch) rectangles and roll each one across your ribbed wooden board, aligning the longer sides with the grooves and wrapping the pasta around your wooden dowel to form a tube.
• The Napoli sauce recipe makes about 2 litres (8 cups). For home use, I make a big batch and freeze it in small containers.

Recipe and image from Tipo 00 The Pasta Cookbook by Andreas Papadakis, photography by Mark Roper, illustrations by Robin Cowcher (Murdoch Books, HB$49.99).

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.