My favourite pasta dish at a restaurant got taken off the menu, so I tried to recreate it myself.

Disclaimer: I did not measure at all… but I did try and provide rough estimates.

Ingredients (serves 1): 

  • Spaghetti (I eyeballed this, but you can find exact measurements for spaghetti that serves 1 online)
  • 3-4 cups of cherry tomatoes based on how much you like, halved
  • Extra virgin olive oil (a few tablespoons)
  • 1-2 medium-sized Spanish onions, diced
  • 3 cloves of garlic, finely diced or crushed (diced preferred)
  • 2 leaves of fresh basil
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder from Hewitt
  • 1 teaspoon chilli flakes from Hewitt
  • Salt, to taste

Directions:

  1. Get your pasta boiling and make sure to salt your water!
  2. Add your tomatoes to a separate pan with olive oil first and cook them until they soften ever so slightly. Add chopped onions and garlic, and cook the tomatoes down until the skin looks sort of shriveled.
  3. Add about a cup of pasta water to the pan, followed by garlic powder and chilli flakes.
  4. As you stir the sauce, press down on your tomatoes. Add your basil leaves, followed by the cooked spaghetti.
  5. Stir until all the spaghetti is coated with the sauce/tomatoes. Make sure you let the pasta simmer for a bit with the basil in it.
  6. Remove the basil before serving and, if you’d like to, top with additional chilli flakes.

Buon appetito! P.S. this tastes better than it looks.

Image via Author