Nick’s Pasta Checca

The Sauce:

• A basket of the freshest ripest heirloom cherry tomatoes, cut in half.
• Three cloves of garlic, minced
• Olive Oil
• Butter
• Fresh Basil chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. First heat up the butter and oil in a skillet and lightly cook the garlic being careful not to burn it
2. After the garlic is clear, crush the fresh tomatoes into the pan. I like to squeeze them in my hands to get the juice out but you can always just crush them with a spatula or fork.
3. Prepare your pasta as you would while the sauce cooks on low to medium. If you are not using fresh pasta, you might want to start this process first.
4. Once the sauces starts to thicken, I like to add the chopped fresh basil and the fresh mozzarella to get it melty. You know it’s time for this when the tomatoes just start to seem like they would stick to pan soon but don’t.
     
5. Strain the pasta and save a bit of that pasta water to loosen the sauce, then butter and season your pasta until it tastes good on its own (salt, pepper, nutmeg). This will help the sauce coat the pasta as well as ensure that the dish is well seasoned all together
6. Add the pasta to the melty checca sauce and toss adding pasta water as needed.
7. Taste and add a bit of parmesan then viola you have pasta with checca sauce!

Notes: I have tried this recipe with regular store bought cherry tomatoes and it wasn’t as successful. They pick them quite a bit earlier and let the tomatoes ripen of the vine usually which greatly diminishes that plump juicy goodness. With the ones I got from a farmers market it was way better! Also use a generous amount of butter and oil for the garlic to infuse into.