Damn good pasta

So, I was watching Anthony Bourdain's show the other night and he had a series of guest chefs show the proper way to make some common foods. One of them was a proper red sauce for pasta. Working what I saw on the show, I made it last night and it was absolutely fantastic. I thought I would share it:

Makes ~4 servings

2 1/2 lbs tomatoes

1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil, divided

Sea Salt

10 cloves garlic, peeled

Crushed red pepper

Fresh Basil

1 lb fresh pasta

1 tbl salted butter

- Blanche tomatoes and remove skin

- Squeeze out seeds and juice into a bowl and reserve (in case the sauce is dry)

- In a stockt pot, heat up about 1/2 a cup of olive oil and put in the tomatoes and a healthy dash of sea salt

- Break up the tomatoes with a potato masher and mix with the oil

- Simmer for ~40 minutes

- When there is ~15 minutes left on the tomatoes, mix a cup of olive oil with 10 cloves garlic, a dash of crushed red pepper and a few basil leaves in a small saucepan and infuse over low heat.

- While oil is infusing, bring water to boil for pasta (if using dry pasta, you will want it al-dente for a later step, so adjust timing)

- Strain infused oil into tomatoes and mix well over med-low heat for ~5 minutes

- Remove tomatoes from heat

- Chop up enough fresh basil for about 1 cup, or to taste

- In a large skillet put about 10 or 12 oz of the sauce mixture over med-high heat to reduce

- Put half the fresh pasta into the boiling water for about 3 minutes

- Transfer the pasta to the skillet with the sauce, add around 1/2 a tablespoon of butter, some fresh chopped basil and a pinch of crushed red pepper

- aerate the pasta and sauce (flip it in the pan) to complete the pasta cooking and to work in the flavors of the basil, pepper and butter.

- repeat the process for the other half of the pasta

- serve immediately

All told, this took about an hour with prep and cooking. You could do the sauce components earlier or the night before, then just warm it up prior to the skillet/pasta steps. That would make this a good weeknight meal.

As for the fresh pasta, I used the stuff you can get in the cooler at the grocery store. I want to make my own pasta, but I am not there yet. Even with the pseudo-fresh stuff, this was an incredibly light and flavorful meal which blew away any pasta sauce I have gotten in a jar. The basil and garlic totally complemented each other and brightened it up. This one gets two forks up.