KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 — I love riddles. At least the ones that I know the answers to.
Nothing is more confounding than a riddle left unsolved (just ask Batman!), like a familiar name left on the tip of your tongue; you almost got it, but not quite.
And so it is, when you go shopping for groceries and an unexpected item (not on your list but you are tempted regardless) catches your eye.
In our case, it’s a punnet of heirloom tomatoes.
We have no plans for making tomato sauces or whipping up a fresh salad. Yet the vibrant colours and irregular shapes of these heirloom tomatoes pique our interest. Hypothetically, if we were to add a punnet of these to our shopping cart, what could we make with them once we got home?
What’s red, orange, yellow and green?
The answer, we decide, is a colourful and flavourful tomato fiesta!
This isn’t a traditional recipe, of course. But if a fiesta is a celebration, then we ought to celebrate these beautiful specimens.
Heirloom tomatoes come in a delicious variety of hues, shapes and sizes. It would be a pity to cook them and render them dull and shapeless.
Rather, a better idea would be to toss them with an uncomplicated pasta, seasoned with oils flavoured by garlic, chillies and rosemary. Easy to make and even easier to eat.
What a burst of colours! What a feast — nay, fiesta — of a meal!
TOMATO FIESTA
With simple dishes such as this tomato fiesta, there aren’t many ingredients. So let’s use the best we can find.
With the main ingredient — the heirloom tomatoes — out of the way, we can focus on the other components.
Choose your favourite pasta, though I would encourage you to opt for shorter, curlier pastas such as macaroni and fusilli as these will retain more of the sauce in every bite.
My top two choices are macaroni, especially the tinier ones that will carry much of the garlic-and-chilli infused oils in its tubes, and fusilli, with its corkscrew shape holding the precious sauce in its twirling crooks and crannies.
Despite what you might have read, extra virgin olive oil can be used for cooking, not only as salad dressing. Plus: a decent sauté does not require very high heat, so use good extra virgin olive oil. You will taste the difference.
The garlic and dried red chillies will make sense, especially for fans of aglio olio e peperoncino (garlic, oil and red chilli flakes). The trick here is to elevate the natural sweetness of the heirloom tomatoes further with the fresh rosemary.
You only need a few leaves of rosemary for intense fragrance. A little goes a long way.
Ingredients
150g short, curly pasta such as macaroni or fusilli (approx. 2 servings)
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced
2-3 dried red chillies
4-5 leaves of fresh rosemary
1 punnet (approx. 10-12) heirloom tomatoes, halved
Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method
Boil the pasta in a large pot of generously salted water according to package directions (the time for al dente will differ according to the brand so don’t throw away the package before reading it).
While the pasta is cooking, heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Sauté garlic and dried red chillies. Cook for a couple of minutes until the garlic is golden. Stir in fresh rosemary and remove from the heat.
Once the pasta is cooked to directions, reserve a small cup of pasta water and drain the rest. Add the cooked pasta to the pan, together with the halved heirloom tomatoes.
Toss everything thoroughly, adding some of the reserved pasta water if necessary to loosen the sauce. Check the seasoning, adjusting with some salt and black pepper to taste.
Transfer to individual plates or bowls and serve immediately.
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