This right here is one of those “Italian 101” dishes. This is a basic pasta and tomato sauce dish. Before you go to your grocery store and buy a jar of premade pasta sauce, consider making this sauce instead. It’s a fairly quick and painless pasta sauce, it doesn’t require very many ingredients, and it tastes better.
Ingredients
1 lb dried spaghetti
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp salt
1-2 tbsp olive oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, smashed and thinly sliced
1 28-35 oz can of whole, peeled tomatoes
3 whole sprigs of basil
½ cup grated parmesan cheese
To make the sauce:
Open the can of tomatoes. Remove each tomato one by one and gently squeeze each in your fist a little bit over the can to release the liquid from the tomato (but make sure you catch it back into the can. You don’t want to lose it!). Place the gently squeezed tomatoes into a bowl and reserve the rest of the liquid in the can. You will need it later.
In a Dutch oven or medium sized stock pot, over low-medium heat, add olive oil and then the thinly sliced garlic. (Note: You want to slice it as thin as humanly possible. The thinner you can slice it, the more you will melt that garlicky goodness into the sauce.) Cook the garlic in the oil for 2-3 minutes. Now add the tomatoes. Allow the tomatoes to cook for about 10 minutes, stirring them regularly and pressing down on them as they cook to gently break them up. As they cook, they should begin to caramelize a little. At this point, add the rest of the liquid from the can, one teaspoon of salt, and the three full sprigs of basil. Do not pull the leaves off the sprigs, put the entire sprigs in intact, stems and all. Stir everything together, cover the pot, and allow to simmer on low for 15 minutes. After this time, give the sauce one more stir and it is ready.
To make the spaghetti:
Fill a medium sized stock pot ½ to ⅔ of the way full with water. Bring to a simmer and then add 2 tablespoons of salt. Yes, two full tablespoons. You want to make salt water; it should be salty like the sea. I should probably tell you to add more than that, but 2 tablespoons will be enough to impart flavor to the pasta. Stir the water to make sure the salt is dissolved and then add in the dried spaghetti. Cook the spaghetti for about 10-12 minutes, until it is al dente.
When the sauce and spaghetti are both ready, remove the pasta from the heat. Do not drain it; instead, use a pasta spoon or slotted spoon to remove the spaghetti from the water, allowing the excess water to drain from each spoonful, and then place it into the pot of sauce. Do this until all of the spaghetti has been placed in the sauce.
Toss the pasta and sauce together. Once fairly well blended together, fill a ladle full of pasta water (the water the pasta was cooking in) and add that water to the pasta and sauce. Stir it all together. Pasta water is the “magic ingredient” that brings the sauces together and adheres the sauce to the pasta noodles.
To serve, place a reasonable portion of the spaghetti on a plate or in a pasta bowl. Sprinkle a desired amount of grated parmesan on top and enjoy!