This recipe comes straight from my Italian roots and it brings back memories of holidays spent in Sicily. This in fact is a traditional Sicilian recipe which normally include anchovies in the ingredients. I swapped them with sweet and juicy slow roasted cherry tomatoes, nutritional yeast and I have added rosemary for an extra aromatic note to the dish. I love how humble and simple this dish and yet so packed with gorgeous summer flavours and textures.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
About 300gr of pasta of your choice
1 large slice of bread, even better if it’s stale ( I have used white sourdough)
2 clove of garlic
1 -2 fresh rosemary branches
½ teaspoon of fresh chilli flakes
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon of sea salt
For the slow roasted cherry tomatoes:
About 250 gr of cherry tomatoes
A pinch of sea salt
½ tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
Start by roasting the tomatoes. Preheat the oven at 150 degrees Celsius. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half and place them on a baking tray. Drizzle the tomatoes with some olive oil and sprinkle with some salt. Bake in the oven at 150 degrees celsius for 30-40 minutes. Don’t roast them at any higher temperatures otherwise they will kind of explode and lose their shape.
If you are using fresh bread and not stale you can place it in the oven with the tomatoes until is super crispy and crunchy.
To make the tomato “sauce” : place the bread broken down into pieces, garlic, rosemary leaves, chilli flakes, nutritional yeast and salt into the Von Shef spice grinder and blitz until you have almost like a very fine flour.
Cook the pasta according to the cooking instructions. Drain it and add the extra virgin olive oil. Stir the breadcrumbs flour reserving at least 1 tablespoon to sprinkle on top. Mix everything together and serve it with the slow roasted tomatoes, extra breadcrumbs mix, some cracked black pepper and garnish with some rosemary leaves. Enjoy straight away!