Pasta in a Greek style no-cook tomato sauce

[juleself]

The Turkish grocery on my street is having the most delicious vine-ripened tomatoes this year and I've been working my way happily through all the tomato recipes in my repertoire lately. I've been doing this one for years already and was quite pleased to see almost the same recipe on Kalyn's Kitchen the other day.

What you need:

Note: I'm German and and don't cook with cup measures. In fact, I'm very much a 'rule of thumb' cook and see recipes more as guidelines. My measurements usually are "a handful of this". :-) To make it easier, I went with most of Kalyn's measurements, since they sounded about right.

Serves 3-4 people

• 1 lb. fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped (cherry tomatoes work as well)
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced black olives
• 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1/4 cup chopped or thinly sliced basil
• 2 tsp. finely chopped fresh oregano (or 1/2 tsp. dried)
• 1 small clove garlic, thinly sliced or pressed (see notes)
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• 3 oz. crumbled Feta Cheese (or more)
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
• 8 oz. pasta (or 8.8 oz. if you're German like me... 250g is what I use)
• generous amount salt, for pasta water


How it's done:

• Chop and slice the vegetables and herbs.
• Put tomatoes, scallions, olives, garlic and herbs into a bowl large enough to also hold the pasta. Mix well.
• Add lemon juice and olive oil, mix again.
• Let it marinate at room temperature for at least an hour.

A note on garlic: Garlic is totally optional in this, but I think it rounds up the Greek flavor nicely. If you don't like raw garlic, you can sautee it in a skillet for a minute or so in a teensy bit of oil. And if you don't own a garlic press (like me, I got fed up with cleaning the darn thing), here's a neat way to prepare the garlic: chop it up, then add a bit of salt and mash it up to a paste on the chopping board with a fork.

• When the veggies have marinated to your taste, put a medium-sized pot with water on the stove and bring it to a boil. Don't add salt just yet! (Already salted water takes longer to boil.)
• Meanwhile, add the crumbled Feta to your sauce.
• When water boils, add salt. (More than you think you need, pasta water needs a lot of salt.)
• Add pasta, cook per instructions on the package.
• When pasta is done, drain it and let it cool for a minute or so.
• Mix pasta under the sauce, add salt and pepper to taste. Serve and enjoy!


What I really love about this recipe:

Add 1/4 cup of sliced cucumbers and bell peppers each to your 'sauce' and let the pasta cool down completely before you add it and you have a pretty good Greek pasta salad. ;-) I often use only half the pasta and sauce for a 'warm meal' and prepare the rest with additional veggies as salad for later.

Bon Appetit!

Comments

[travelingmonkey]

How old is the micro? Getting a micro-convection oven might be better, I don't think you can make all too many things in a toaster, can you? We did (finally) get one of those too, I'd never lived without a toaster-oven before! haha. But I only use it really for toast, and rolls w/ cheese that I stick in and melt and then sprinkle garlic salt. I suppose there's larger ones that you can get, that you can cook pizzas in (I had one of those in the US), but options are still pretty limited for what can go in it. I would be a wreck without being able to use the convection oven part of the micro! Cakes, casserole things, bread (haven't attempted that one, but it can be done!), etc. Anything that fits in it can be cooked in it as though it were a regular oven. If we were meat-eaters, we could cook chickens or stuff in it! lol. But that's my own take, obviously; you know your needs better than I do! =P