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course.
    Meanwhile, cook the rigatoni following the instructions on the packet, and then toss the pasta into the sauce in the pan. Combine everything well and serve straightaway.
    Serves 6 for a starter; 4 for a main course.

SPAGHETTINI AL SUGO CRUDO
    In Italy, pasta al sugo , pasta with a sauce, means the sauce, tomato sauce and this, when the tomatoes are raw, and the sauce is more of a fragrant, olive-oil-soused salad tumbled over hot pasta, is my favourite variant. It’s the first thing I make when I hit Italy, not just because this is best eaten under an Italian sun, but because this is best made with Italian tomatoes – by which I mean tomatoes that taste of tomatoes. Actually, it is easier to come by those here than it used to be, but the utmost vigilance is still required: I like tomatoes that are a bit smaller than the palm of my hand, preferably with stalk and indeed stem still attached, and I never, under any circumstances, keep them in the fridge.
    1kg fabulous tomatoes
    1 teaspoon caster sugar
    Maldon salt
    black pepper
    1 clove garlic
    125ml extra virgin olive oil
    500g spaghettini
    Blanch the tomatoes by putting them in a large bowl, pouring over boiling water from a kettle to cover, and letting them sit for a few minutes. Drain them, peel them (the blanching makes this easy: just cut with the tip of a knife and the skins will come away easily) then halve them and scoop out the pips. Cut away the cores (this is probably easier once you’ve quartered them) then chop them; I use my mezzaluna for this, though an ordinary sharp knife would do just fine. Scoop them up, put them in a bowl, stir in the sugar and sprinkle with Maldon salt and grind in some pepper. Lean on the garlic clove with the flat side of a knife to bruise it and peel off the skin and add the smashed clove to the tomatoes in the bowl along with the oil. Stir together brutally with a fork – though I tend to use my Magiwhisk (like a small whisk made of a beard-shaped coil of wire) for this; I want to beat this into more of a sauce – and cover with clingfilm and leave, out of the fridge, for at least half an hour and up to 8 hours.
    Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions and once drained, pick out the garlic clove from the tomatoes in the bowl and throw it away, tossing the soused tomatoes into the hot spaghettini. I don’t like grated parmesan with this, but I often make it (as per the picture below) with a ball of buffalo mozzarella, diced and stirred into the tomato sauce a minute before combining sauce and pasta. When I’m in Tuscany, I like to use instead a handful of diced pecorino toscano, which is softer, crumblier and sweeter and with a creamier tang than the hard, sharp pecorino Romano used for usual grating (and in capellini con cacio e pepe ). This is also wonderful, and helps with less fulsomely tomatoey tomatoes, when you add the juice of half a lemon to the tomatoes in the bowl and grate over the zest of a lemon as you toss the pasta in the sauce at the end. Needless to say – I’d presume – any of these variants taste wonderful with ahandful of basil leaves, shredded or torn up at the last minute (otherwise they’ll start to blacken), some tossed through the sauce before it goes on to the pasta, and some scattered over the pasta afterwards.
    Serves 6 as a starter; 4 as a light main course.



SPAGHETTI AGLIO OLIO PEPERONCINO
    I have ummed and erred internally – and sometimes, I’m afraid rumblingly out loud – over whether to include this here or not. On the one hand, pasta with a bit of garlic, olive oil and dried red chilli pepper is hardly a recipe, but on the other, I can’t imagine summer without it. I am not someone who wants to eat just cold food when it’s hot: I want to sit in the garden with a quickly made bowlful of something heat-infused and fiery. And this is simply the culmination, and almost instant gratification, of that desire.
    Besides, since when has ease of execution been a factor