When Its Too Hot To Cook: Wicked Easy Pasta Fredda
Plus a piccante Italian summer aperitivo playlist just for you and my favorite fishing village by the sea
Ciao friends!
Benvenuto l’estate! Summer is hitting us over the head here in Italy like a big, humid, sunny hammer. The pomegranate tree in the garden is flowering with it’s waxy, bright poppy-colored petals. The ubiquitious honey jasmine scent of early June has past, leaving behind its memory in the form of dry petals coating dog #2’s thick fur every time he emerges from under a gelsomino bush. End of June also brings walls of ortensia or hydrangeas, giving me the impression of strolling through a garden of fireworks. And it’s hot - really hot - and humid - remember when I taught you afa last summer? Lo adoro, but it’s that.
This week’s recipe is the delicious antidote to all the heat! I have a easy, 20 minute authentic Italian recipe for you: a fresh, sassy mix of sweet fresh tomato, creamy pesto, mozzarella, and tangy olive. Jump ahead to the recipe or stick around for your new favorite summer aperitivo playlist and a Mediterrenan fishing village getaway.
Italian Summer Aperitivo playlist
Aperitivo… that magical moment in Italy when the sun starts to set, a golden light fills the piazzas luring Italians of all ages in their branded sunglasses. Dogs splay under tables loaded with icy vibrant tangerine, crimson, and carmel-colored sprtizes, cubed salty cheeses, affettati, and crispy patatine. Under the hum of conversation, toddlers rob a fistful of potato chips or peanuts and older children hope for pizzette or tiny pizzas.
Click play below to recreate your own aperitivo at your casa like I do at mine! 🧡
PS The pasta fredda is an excellent starring plate for a light dinner or part of a spread of tasty nibbles for an aperitivo rinforzato aka apericena with some antipasti, olives, nuts, and bruschetta with any topping you have languishing in your fridge. CIN-CIN amori!
A dose of Vitamin Sea
This is where Giorgio and I go when we need to recharge. 2 hours from Como on the sea on the west coast of Northern Italy in Liguria. Noli is our special place. We’d both been going there before we met; now we go together. I’m pretty certain it’s magic. The soft sea air, fingers pulling apart focaccia for breakfast, the salty taste of Giorgio’s cheek after a swim, and the anchovies, fried, fresh, marinated, upside-down, right-side-up, you name it. (Head to Giulia’s post for recipes!) Here’s our few days in a happy little postcard for you.
This week’s wicked easy barely-cook recipe!
Last year I said that I don’t see pasta salad on menus here in Italy, which is true. But Italians do make something extremely similar at home and call it pasta fredda aka cold pasta.
How is Italian pasta fredda different to pasta salad that I’ve tasted (and disliked) in the US?
The devil is in the details. The pasta salads of my American past involved mushy pastas drowning in a sad sea of dressing. Italians, food geniuses that they are, nail the simple, fresh goodness of this fresh summer dish - without sacrificing texture or flavor - by applying a few easy methods that make it sing!
Pasta Salad Tips, with love from Italy
We begin with this universal assumption: Nobody likes soggy food. Second is a fact: Italians always do pasta better and this pasta salad is no exception!
Cook your pasta 1-2 minutes less than the al dente instruction time on the package. It will absorb your sauce and become perfectly cooked - instead of overcooked and soggy - when mixed with the sauce and other ingredients.
Immediately after you drain your pasta, rinse it immediately in cold water to stop the cooking.
All ingredients that can “lose water”, e.g. mozzarella, should be squeezed or drained to remove excess liquid which can turn your pasta fredda to bad cold soupy pasta.
Add just enough sauce and/or extra virgin olive oil to the pasta. The pasta will absorb it and become flavorful. Time is a factor with pasta fredda - it will sit around and keep absorbing sauce. If you add too much, the pasta will turn bloated and stracotta - or overcooked - and mushy. Nobody likes that.
Serve the pasta at room temperature, not right out of the cold fridge. Just as Italians don’t store tomatoes in the cold because they have more flavor out of the fridge, and Napoletani serve their glorious mozzarella at room temperature, pasta fredda will have more flavor at temperatura ambiente too!
Think contrasting texture and taste combos; Ottolenghi is a master of Mediterrenean flavor mixing, explains making “the perfect forkful”. In this most classic of pasta fredda recipes, the sweet, juicy tomatoes contrast the salty pesto, the tangy olives contrast creamy mozzarella, the relatively soft pasta texture contrasts the meaty bite of the tomatoes and olives.
pst! Scroll to the very bottom to download recipe pdf!
Pasta salad with baby tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, and pesto
Pasta fredda con pomodorini, olive, basilico, mozzarella, e pesto
FOR 4 PEOPLE
The ingredients
400g red, yellow, orange baby tomatoes chopped into 8ths because 4ths isn’t small enough
150g olives, I used a green meaty pitted jumbo olive, but you can also use pitted and/or black olives
340g mozzarella, cut into cubes about the same size as the tomatoes
6 large leaves or 12 small leaves of fresh basil, torn
4 Tbls jarred, good quality pesto (look for made with olive oil)
16 Tbls good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp salt (then taste if need more, this is primarily flavoring the tomatoes and mozzarella)
400g farfalle (butterfly-shaped pasta) or other short pasta like fusilli
Optional: freshly ground pepper, to taste
The method
1) Fill a big tall pot with water and salt and set on high heat stove burner. Taste the water to make sure it’s salty like the sea (and add more salt if needed).
2) Meanwhile:
cut your tomatoes into eighths
set your mozzarella in a strainer or on a towel to drain water and cut into chunks the same size as the tomatoes
tear your basil leaves into halves or thirds
chop off olive meat into pieces to remove seeds
Mix all together in a bowl with the olive oil, pesto, salt, and pepper if you like pepper.
3) Once the water is boiling, add the pasta. Set a timer to cook 1-2 minutes LESS THAN AL DENTE packet instructions. If you’re eating right away, 1 minute. If you’re eating in an hour or next day, 2 minutes.
4) Strain and run immediately under cold water to stop cooking. DRAIN WELL.
4) Add to the tomatoes, mozzarella, pesto, olive mixture. Stir to combine flavors.
5) Taste for salt and add more salt if you need.
***I taste tested this just after making, then 1 hour, 3 hours, and the next day. My preference is to wait at least an hour for the flavors to merge. BUONISSIMO and so fresh.
Buon appetito!
Notes:
Salt: It’s important not to skimp. This salt is flavoring your pasta.
Pasta: you can substitute with any short pasta like fusilli
Extra virgin olive oil: The olive oil is your sauce so its important! Don’t skimp! If it says ‘extra virgin olive oil’ and ‘cold pressed’ on the glass (not plastic) bottle, that’s a good start! Reference Olive Oil Unfiltered for more tips on selecting an olive oil you like.
Inspired by this recipe by the wonderful Fatto in Casa da Benedetta. Grazie! ❤️
Buon appetito!
x Lolly
This sounds so delicious Lolly! A perfect cold pasta recipe for the summer.
Your turn of phrase gives me chills...but, it's true, your recipes can make pasta salad fell modern again