blistered tomatoes Archives - Proud Italian Cook

Fettuccine with Roasted Tomatoes and Burrata

This is the time of year that I really look forward to eating this special pasta dish, it’s made with fettuccine, roasted cherry tomatoes and burrata cheese, simple with few ingredients. Honestly there’s just nothing like it, the taste is so fresh and light with dreamy burrata melted throughout!

Once I start seeing these gorgeous cherry tomatoes on the vine in the markets I shop at, I’m hooked and I know exactly what I’m making with them.

I’ve been making this dish for years, I’m always switching up the type of pasta that I use, I even made it with zucchini noodles in the past, equally delicious!

This time I wanted to use fettuccine, I’ve also made it with short mostaccioli, rigatoni many times and a springy shaped pasta as well, it really doesn’t matter what shape you use just pick your favorite.

What does remain the same is how the tomatoes get roasted. Always on a rimmed cookie sheet lined with foil. The foil will insure that none of the juices get dried up or evaporated on the pan.

Sometimes I leave the tomatoes whole and sometimes I cut them in half, there’s always garlic added, usually shaved, lot’s of olive oil drizzled all over, salt, pepper and torn basil.

The tomatoes are roasted in a 400 degree oven until they start to blister and burst open. If the tomatoes are whole I just prick them in the middle of the roasting process so the juices can burst out and mingle with the olive oil, all those flavors together become your sauce for the pasta.

Like I said most of the time I add shaved garlic, but if I prepare in advance I also like using roasted garlic as well.

Just squeeze out a bunch of the roasted cloves and add it into the tomato mix while roasting, then before you toss in all those wonderful juices onto your cooked pasta, smash the cloves first so that the garlic flavor can release into the sauce even more, it’s extremely delicious!

When your pasta is cooked, place it into your serving vessel, scrape down every bit of the juice that accumulated in the pan, garlic and all and toss it all together.

To finish it off and bring this dish to the ultimate of flavor, break open one or two balls of burrata cheese and place it on top of the pasta.

Just a quick drizzle of olive oil all over and a nice grating of Pecorino or Parmigiana and of course extra torn basil all around, and you’ll have one heck of a meal!

Simple and delicious!

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Spaghetti with Blistered Tomatoes, Burrata and Corn

This recipe is summer freshness at it’s best, and the great thing about it is that the preparation is nice and simple but yields the most amazing results!

What you’re looking at are strands of spaghetti intertwined with juicy, cherry tomatoes that have burst and blistered in the oven to create the most luxurious tomato and garlic flavored sauce with the special addition of sweet, fresh corn kernels and burrata cheese.

Fresh summer flavors are what makes this dish such a hit, there’s no special skills you need in making it because the ingredients speak for themselves.

Do a search and you’ll see roasted tomatoes and pasta all over the place, but I make this every summer and this is my way of doing it and what works for me. So rather than a recipe at the bottom of the post I’ll just walk you through the steps now.

I use a quarter sheet pan that has a rim on it. Heat the oven to 425F and line the pan with foil. Lining it with foil helps to gather and hold on to those precious, silky juices, plus it helps prevents the juices from burning off.

I really don’t measure the amount of tomatoes I use, I just load the pan from rim to rim, single layer with cherry or grape tomatoes, you could use all red or colored.

I leave the tomatoes whole so they can burst on their own when ready.

Add in four cloves of crushed garlic, torn basil, salt, pepper and dowse it generously all over with extra virgin olive oil.

When you start to see the tomatoes split pull the pan out of the oven and with the tip of a small paring knife pierce each tomato to let the hot juices release, word of caution, lean back because sometimes the juice will squirt out at you, then before it goes back into the oven add the fresh kernels of two ears of sweet corn, continue cooking until you see the tomatoes wrinkle and all the juices mingling together with the olive oil, garlic and corn.

It should look like this. Now all you have to do is cook up your spaghetti or pasta of your choice and then toss everything together, make sure you get every bit of that juice incorporated, use a rubber spatula to make sure you scrape off all that glorious juice. For this amount of saucey goodness I used twelve ounces of pasta.

When all the silky sauce is mixed in break open your burrata cheese, (as much as you want) and spread it on top, it will start to melt slightly, then adorn it with more basil, grated Parmigiano Reggiano and a quick drizzle of olive oil to finish it off.