Recipe: Pasta in Pink Sauce

In my entry on our travels to Mazunte, Oaxaca, I mentioned a phenomenal Italian restaurant that we ate in. One of the dishes we had there was fettuccini in pink sauce. Neither of us had ever had pink sauce before and we loved it. It´s basically tomato sauce with cream. We’ve made it a couple of times at home now. It’s straightforward and as easy to do as most pastas. If you have your own preferred basic tomato sauce, use that and just add the cream. You’ll be amazed at how much the flavor changes. Here’s how we did it. (We were hungry though, and forgot to take a picture!)

This will serve four people as a main course and eight as a side dish.

Pasta in Pink Sauce

1 lb. dried pasta (fettuccini, spaghetti, linguini are good)

2 Tablespoons olive oil

½ cup diced onion

¼ cup diced carrot

¼ cup diced celery

1 bay leaf

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons chopped, fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried)

3 cups stewed tomatoes (use frozen or canned)

½ cup heavy cream

Salt and pepper to taste

½ cup chopped, fresh parsley

Shredded parmigiano (optional)

Put a pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta. As it heats up, chop the vegetables. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Add the onion, carrots, celery, and bay leaf and cook until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for another 2 minutes, then add the oregano and cook for another minute until fragrant. Add the stewed tomatoes (If you are using the frozen version, you can put the frozen chunks right into the pan. Just break them up and keep everything moving.) Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes or until it begins to thicken. Taste and add salt and pepper. Stir in the cream, taste, and adjust salt again. You’ll be amazed how much that little bit of cream changes the flavor!

Cook the pasta until it is about 1 minute shy of being done. It should be a little too al dente. Take a scant cup of the pasta water and add it to your sauce (if the sauce is still pretty thin, you can just add ½ cup). Drain the pasta and then immediately add it to the sauce. Stir to combine and continue cooking until all of the excess liquid is absorbed and the pasta is perfectly al dente, about 2-3 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Note: This trick of adding pasta water to the sauce works great. The water is salty and starchy from cooking the pasta and adds a really nice flavor. It is also always important to finish cooking your pasta in the sauce so that the flavors all come together, which is why you take it out before it’s done.

Plate the pasta and top with parsley and parmigiano. Enjoy!