Ingredients:
- Ripe tomatoes (small cherry tomatoes or large tomatoes), diced into small pieces
- fresh basil (a few leaves) or parsley and/or mint or Sicilian mountain oregano.
- 2 or 3 garlic cloves
- Extra-virgin olive oil (q.b. – “quanto basta” or “as much as you need”)
- salt, q.b.
- Parmesan or pecorino cheese, q.b.
- pasta, rigatoni or penne (1 lb for every 5 persons)
- Optional: diced mozzarella cheese or diced pecorino (I used Pino’s goat’s milk cheese, tomino di caprino, when making this pasta the other day)
Finely chop tomatoes with garlic (but omit the garlic if you will add diced cheese to the pasta sauce). Finely dice basil or mint and/or parsley.
Pino’s mother had no sophisticated culinary equipment in her kitchen, so she simply crushed the tomatoes, basil, garlic-mixture with the bottom of a glass.
I still do the same as I know no other way to make this pasta sauce….! If you’re making the sauce with cheese, crush the tomatoes with the herbs you are using (no garlic) and add cheese cut into small pieces.
Boil salted water and when at a rolling boil, drop in pasta, draining when al dente (“to the tooth”). Add fresh tomato sauce to pasta and add a bit of olive oil as needed. Sprinkle with Parmesan or pecorino cheese. Serve.
