It’s pasta time again. I’m hopelessly addicted to Italian Foodies’ sun-dried tomato pesto recipe. I’ve been making it pretty regularly of late, and for the first time today I found I had some left over. Shocking, I know. Happily, I also had some leftover mascarpone in the fridge, so I came up with this. You probably don’t need the can of tomatoes, just mix the pesto with the mascarpone, but I think it works rather well. Give it a try.
Ingredients
- fresh tagliatelle, enough for 2 people
- 400g can tomatoes
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ½ tsp balsamic vinegar
- pinch of sugar
- salt & pepper
- 2 tbsp sun-dried tomato pesto
- 2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
- 3 tbsp mascarpone cheese
Method
- Heat a little olive oil in a saucepan and add the minced garlic. Fry for a minute and add the tomatoes, oregano, sugar and vinegar. Season with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bring to a bubble and simmer gently for 20 minutes.
- Cook your pasta according to the instructions on the packet.
- Add the pesto, parmesan and mascarpone and stir to melt the cheese into the sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
- Add the hot pasta to the sauce and make sure the pasta is coated well. Serve with some grated parmesan and a twist of black pepper.
Serves 2.
This looks fabulous! I love the creaminess mascarpone cheese adds to a pasta sauce. I like to add a little of the pasta cooking water, which helps to extend the sauce and thicken it (because of the starch in the water).
I have made this 3 times now and it is really lovely. The first time I accidentally got a bit too much balsamic vinegar in, and it turned out bitter. I thought it was the recipe, and just added loads of cheddar into the sauce instead. The second time I noticed that there was nothing in the recipe which would have made it taste anything else than wonderful. The third time I didn’t have any mascarpone so I just added cheddar, a bit of parmesan and ready whipped cream from a can :P.
I find this to be really tasty and really, really quick and easy. I would encourage people to try this. It’s a nice extra if you slice a dozen of cherry tomatoes and sprinkle them ontop of the food. The juicyness of the cherrytomatoes goes well with the overall flavour of this dish.
Here is a picture of what mine looked like;
http://blueberryfingerprints.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-do-you-know-if-you-are-addicted-to.html