VANILLA SPAGHETTI WITH CARAMELIZED TOMATOES

#1

vegetarian

main course

medium

Cettina Vicenzino

INGREDIENTS FOR 4 PERSONS

400 g spaghetti
800 ml of cream
1 stick of vanilla
60 g butter
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
100 g Grana Padano, finely grated
600 g cherry tomatoes
4 stems of thyme
20 g TOMAMI # 1
20 g balsamic vinegar
30 g honey
8 basil leaves
4 small meringues (optional)
4 tbsp. ricotta
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Cut open the vanilla pod and scrape out the pulp. Put both into a sauté pan with the cream and reduce to about half for ca. 25-30 minutes.
Melt the butter over a low heat in a pan and braise one finely chopped clove of garlic in the butter. Add to the cream sauce, stir well and allow to simmer lightly.
Heat the water for the pasta in a large saucepan. When the water starts to boil, add salt and cook the pasta al dente at a high temperature, stirring occasionally. Strain the pasta and retain some of the cooking water.

While the pasta is cooking, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and add the tomatoes, the whole garlic and the stems of thyme; fry for about 5-7 minutes until they start to change colour. Add salt after approx. 3 minutes and toss the pan again and again. Mix together TOMAMI # 1, Aceto Balsamico and honey and pour over the tomatoes. Simmer very briefly and remove from the heat.

Put the pasta into the cream sauce and stir in the Grana Padano. Season everything again with salt and pepper and, if necessary, add a little of the cooking water to achieve a creamier consistency.

Arrange the pasta on plates. Spread the tomatoes over the pasta; add a spoonful of ricotta, decorate with basil and, if you like, with a meringue and serve.
Preparation time: 40 minutes
A recipe from Cettina Vicenzino.

We have entered into a collaboration with a new partner, Cettina Vicenzino. Cettina was born in Sicily, then moved to Cologne with her family in 1972. Her parents opened an Italian restaurant there under the name of “Mamma Maria” and run by her mother. Before Cettina moved to Hamburg to study fashion and art, she spent her days off in the restaurant kitchen doing experimental cooking. Cooking and eating remained the common thread throughout her many activities.
In addition to artistic activities in he fields of fashion art, eat art and concept art, she took up food photography in 1992, always trying not to artificially replicate food products, but to preserve the respect for nature. Nowadays she lives in Bavaria and Sicily with her husband and works as a freelance photographer, recipe developer, food stylist writer of cookbooks and regular columns about Italian food culture.
Her cookbook “ITALIA” won 1st place at the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2017 as the best Italian cookbook in the world.