Prep 15 min - cook 50 min - serves 4
Banshi Durum Pasta with Slow Tomato and Basil
A forty-minute tomato sauce built on Banshi durum pasta, where the only technique is refusing to rush the reduction.
Before you cook
A long, quiet simmer is what separates a tomato sauce from tomato soup poured over pasta. Forty minutes at a bare bubble concentrates a sweetness no sugar reproduces.
Salt the pasta water properly. It is the only chance the pasta itself gets to be seasoned from the inside.
Method
Warm the oil and cook the onion gently until soft and translucent, not coloured.
Add the garlic and cook for one minute, only until the raw edge disappears.
Tip in the tomatoes with a good pinch of salt and stir once.
Bring to a bubble, then drop the heat until the surface barely moves.
Simmer uncovered for forty minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping the base.
Taste and correct: salt first, then a little sugar only if it is sharp.
Boil the pasta in heavily salted water, stopping two minutes short of the packet time.
Reserve a cup of pasta water, then drain the pasta without rinsing it.
Combine pasta and sauce in the pan, loosening with pasta water until it flows.
Tear in the basil off the heat so its aroma survives, then serve immediately.
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