Discover Spaghetti in Tomato Water at L’Incontro by Rocco — a mind-blowing twist on classic pasta tucked away in NYC’s Upper East Side. A secret worth slurping.
INGREDIENTS
- 3 Pints of Cherry Tomatoes (Farmer’s market preferred, this is a recipe for August)
- 4-5 tbsp of Unsalted Butter
- 3 Stems of Fresh Basil
- 1 lb of Spaghetti
DIRECTIONS
Make the Tomato Water
- Cut the cherry tomatoes in half to allow their juice to expel a bit more easily, and than add them to a small pot. Add about 1/4 cup of water to get them started and bring them up to a boil. Add a tiny bit of salt to aid in the release of their juice. Once some juice is starting to accumulate, add in the basil leaves and stems. Allow that to cook for about an hour to allow the tomatoes to get super soft, almost to the point that all that is left are the skins.
- Then, in a fine mesh strainer, strain the basil, tomato skins, and seeds out and reserve only the tomato water. Press out all the liquid you can from the skins, and you can use those skins for something else like a tomato jam or even puree it to make a regular tomato sauce.
Cook the Pasta and Form the Sauce
- Cook the pasta in a smaller pot and once boiling, add enough salt to the water so that it tastes like a seasoned broth. Then drop in the pasta, tuck it under the water, and the package says this cooks in 9 minutes, so I'm going to pull it at around 7 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a pan or saucier off to the side, turn the heat on to low and add in about a cup or so of the tomato water. I’d say about a cup of tomato water per person should get you there if you’re making this for more people. (Give the pasta a stir). And then we can take our cold butter out of the fridge and dice it up. For one portion, about 1-2 tablespoons should be enough.
- Once the pasta has been cooking in the water for 7 minutes, we’re going to take it out and add it to the tomato water. This is going to slow down the cooking process so im not going to cook it for 2 more minutes in the pan, I'm going to cook it for closer to 5 minutes in the tomato water. Bring the heat up and start to swirl and toss the pasta around in the tomato water, releasing some of that starch from the pasta and reducing the tomato water to the point of almost glazing the spaghetti. Check the pasta for al dente and if its still under and the tomato water has reduced, just treat it like pasta water and add a little at a time until the pasta is al dente and the tomato water is glazing the spaghetti. Then turn off the heat, add in the cold butter, and swirl and toss until the butter is completely melted and emulsified into the sauce. The sauce should be clingy tightly to the spaghetti, and it should have a slight pink hue, almost like a vodka sauce. That's perfect and ready to plate.
Plate
- Using a ladle, pick up the pasta and twirl it up in the ladle like you would a fork with a spoon, then transfer to the place and slide it off the ladle. Then top it with some more sauce, you can always add a bit more pasta water to the pan to get a little more yield from the sauce and then finish with a little basil and a little grated parm. Looks like a simple tomato sauce, but wait until you taste it.
