Nora Ephron's take on the beautifully simple Italian classic recipe Pasta alla Checca. Linguine is mixed with a fresh, cold tomato sauce, with a light and flavorful result. This pasta is simple to put together and a wonderful way to use up fresh seasonal tomatoes.
First, blanch your tomatoes. Bring a pot of water to the boil and put your tomatoes in, whole, for about a minute. You aren't trying to cook them, just get the skin loosened.
Remove the water and set aside until they are cool enough to handle.
Remove the skins, and then chop roughly and remove the seeds (whilst trying to keep as much of the juice as possible!)
Put the chopped tomatoes in a bowl with the olive oil, chili flakes, basil and garlic.
Set aside for a few hours, to let the flavors mingle.
When it's time to serve, cook your linguine according to package instructions. Drain and return to the pan.
Remove the garlic from the tomato sauce.
Mix the tomato sauce in with the linguine. (Do not have any heat on the pan at this stage - the tomatoes will warm up a little just by contact with the linguine but we don't want the end result to be piping hot).
Serve!
Notes
For a lower fat and calorie count, you can easily cut the olive oil in half. Add a couple extra tomatoes if you do - the extra juice from those will stop the sauce from becoming too dry.