Spaghetti al pomodoro crudo

Crudo means uncooked, so basically this is a pasta dish with some chopped up tomatoes. Quick and easy to make, but the quality of the ingredients is all the more important.  Do use the best quality artisanal pasta available (Latini or Martelli are good examples).  This pasta is rougher on the surface so that the sauce clings better to the spaghetti strands. Finding good tomatoes is getting easier nowadays.  Buy them on the vine and store them for a few days on a window sill (never in the fridge of course). A delicate olive oil from Liguria made from the Taggiasca olives would be a perfect match.

Obviously variations on this simple idea are plentiful: add some garlic, or peperoncino, olives or diced mozzarella and so on.  I would recommend to stick to the original though.

Ingredients

• 300 g spaghetti, of the best possible, artisanal quality
• 3 tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons extra vergin olive oil
• fresh basil leaves,torn
• salt and black pepper

Remove the hard core and the seeds of the tomatoes and chop them up. Put them in a large bowl, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, the basil, and season with salt and pepper.  Let marinate for at least one hour (not in the fridge).

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, add salt and cook the spaghetti al dente. Drain, and add to the bowl with the tomatoes.  Add  the remaining olive oil and mix thoroughly. Serve immediately.

Further reading:

• excellent post on the same subject by Terry B. of the Blue Kitchen
• a version where the tomatoes are pureed in the blender by Il pranzo di Babette (in Italian)