A quick way to infuse taste of summer tomatoes right into your pasta
It's so easy to take advantage of summer's tomato bounty: The triple-S rotation of sandwiches, salads and soups will dispatch the beauties effectively and deliciously. And then there's pasta. Even when the weather is so unbearably hot I resist bringing a pot of water to boil, I can't keep tomatoes separate from noodles for too long; the marriage is too right.
Speed is key. I like my summertime pasta-with-tomatoes dishes to come together in as little time as possible, which cuts down on that boiling-pot steam but also keeps the tomatoes tasting bright and fresh. That's where angel-hair pasta (capellini) comes in, cooking to tenderness in just a few minutes.
The sauce is little more than ripe tomatoes, chopped and cooked down with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar (just to bring out the best in the fruit). After it thickens — which can happen in as little as 15 minutes or as long as a half-hour, depending on the texture and juiciness of the fruit and the size of your saucepan — you stir in a fistful of chopped basil and a little butter, which pulls it all together.
That capellini comes with another bonus: When you finish cooking it in the sauce, it absorbs some, meaning you get fabulous tomato flavor in every bite.
• Joe Yonan is the Food and Dining editor of The Washington Post and the author of “Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook.” He writes the Food section's Weeknight Vegetarian column.