Pink pasta with passata and mascarpone
Ten minutes of sauce while the pasta boils
Doubles easily in a wider pan for the sauce, though cook the pasta in a large pan of water regardless of how many portions you are making.
Passata and mascarpone beaten together turn a bright tomato red into something altogether softer, a bright coral-pink that clings to pasta the way a proper sauce should rather than pooling underneath it. Garlic cooked down first in butter until it collapses into a soft paste is what carries the flavour, since there is no basil leaf allowed anywhere near this diet to do the job instead. The whole sauce takes about as long as the pasta does to cook, so nothing waits and nothing needs a second pan. Beat the mascarpone in off the heat rather than boiling it, and the colour stays exactly as pink as the moment it went in, rather than fading back toward red.
Ingredients
Contains: Gluten, Milk
- 90 gwhite pasta, any short or long shape
- 15 gunsalted butter
- 1 clovegarlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 200 gpassata
- 50 gmascarpone
- salt
- 15 gParmesan, finely grated, to serve
Method
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta for a minute longer than the packet says, until fully tender with no bite at the centre. Before you drain it, scoop out a small cupful of the cooking water and keep it.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat. Add the garlic and cook gently, stirring and mashing it against the pan with the back of a spoon, for 5 to 6 minutes, until it collapses into a soft paste with no raw bite or crisp edge left.
Pour in the passata and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring now and then, until it has thickened slightly and deepened to a rich red.
Take the pan off the heat and beat in the mascarpone until it has completely melted through and the sauce turns a bright, even coral-pink.
Drain the pasta and tip it into the sauce, tossing well and adding a splash of the reserved cooking water if it looks tight, until every strand is coated in pink. Taste for salt.
Pile into a warm bowl and finish with the grated Parmesan.
Watch-points
- Use passata rather than whole or chopped tomatoes, so there is no skin or seed anywhere in the sauce.
- Cook the garlic gently until it collapses into a soft paste, with no raw or crisp piece left in the pan.
- Cook the pasta a minute past the packet time, so there is no bite left at the centre of it.
Stoma note: White pasta thickens stoma output, which makes this a useful plate on a loose day.
Make it more nourishing
- Beat in an extra 20 g of mascarpone for a richer, thicker sauce.
- Stir in an extra 15 g of butter off the heat right before serving.
- Use 25 g of Parmesan instead of 15 g.
Swaps
- Instead of mascarpone, use cream cheese, beaten in the same way
- a slightly sharper sauce, still turns the same colour
- Instead of white pasta, use gluten-free white pasta
- the same soft-cooked texture for a reader avoiding wheat