Spicy Cherry Tomato & Garlic Confit Pasta
I have mentioned in the past how cooking is not my expertise. I wouldn’t say that I am a “bad chef”, I just never make time for it. Food is truly something that I do love and my good friend Nicholas creates the most incredible dishes over on his Instagram. When I created The LF Journal, I loved the idea of introducing some of my friends who are well versed in specific categories that I may not be. I knew I needed to share some of Nicholas’s amazing recipes on the blog!! BUT don’t you worry... I’m going to start putting my cooking skills to use and create some dishes alongside Nicholas for the blog. Without further ado, I’ll let Nicholas take over this blog post and share his delish recipe below:
I hate when recipe posts are super long and have detailed stories about life growing up on the farm that inspired the dish, etc *Nicholas' words*. Here is a super simple pasta recipe to eat by yourself and save leftovers, or to make for a dinner party when we’re allowed to see people again.
Ingredients:
-1/2 C Olive Oil
-1.5 Pints Cherry tomatoes
-10 whole peeled garlic cloves
-4 whole Calabrian Chiles
-1/2 cup white wine
-1 box of linguine
-4-5 Basil leaves
-Parmesan
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 300°.
2. Pour the olive oil in the bottom of a cast iron pan and add the cherry tomatoes, whole garlic cloves, whole basil leaves, and the Calabrian chiles. Roast in the oven for 1 hour. You’ll see in the photos that I forgot to add basil before cooking the tomatoes and I wanted to punch myself.
3. Bring a large pot of water to boil— salt it once the water starts boiling! If you salt the water before it boils, it will take longer to heat up. Cook the pasta for exactly 7 minutes for a perfect al dente. Time this step for close to when your tomatoes are done.
4. Remove the tomatoes from the oven and strain out excess oil (save it to cook with in the future, spicy tomato oil!!). I also remove the Calabrian Chiles here as well, but you can leave them if you want it to be even spicier. Carefully transfer the pan to the stove and turn it on medium heat. Add the half cup of white wine and sauté for about 4 minutes or until the wine has reduced a bit.
5. Toss in the pasta, top with grated Parmesan and more basil. The garlic will have gotten super soft in the oven and will coat the pasta as you’re tossing it together. Serve immediately.
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