Your Best Pasta All Year May Be This Raw and Cooked Tomato Combo
Now’s the time to make it
The farmers market is still full of excellent summery produce and will be for a little while longer. This is good news because, starting in midsummer, many of our favorite meals rely on sweet, tart, savory ripe tomatoes. Slice a really good tomato, add some salt and wait for whoever tastes (or smells) it to ask, “Did you put MSG in here, or an anchovy? No? Really? Maybe sugar?”
When eating them in a pasta dish (one of their great purposes in life), we’re often torn between using them raw (as described years ago in a Washington Post story) and cooking them briefly enough to retain their freshness.
A while ago I ran into a recipe by an Italian chef — don’t remember who, or where I saw it — that treated five or so different kinds of tomatoes in five or so different ways raw and cooked, ending up with what sounded like a delicious plate of spaghetti. As vague as I am about the details, the basic notion of combining raw and cooked tomatoes stuck with me, and I finally did something about it the other day.
For this, you’ll need only two kinds of tomato: Big juicy “regular” ones, either classic red Beefsteaks or one of the many heirloom varieties; and little juicy cherry tomatoes. They must all be delicious, because they’re…
