Simple Italian cuisine step by step: Our first recipe: penne pomodoro e basilico [penne with tomato sauce and basil]

This basic dish is very easy to make. It's basically penne (a very popular type of short pasta) with tomato sauce (which is not ketchup) and basil, which is just there to add some flavour (it can really make a big difference though). You can do this in serveral ways: we'll choose an easy one. You can use either fresh tomatoes or pre-made tomato sauce. This time I'll show you how to do it with tomato sauce, since I don't have any fresh tomatoes in the fridge at the moment.

Penne pomodoro e basilico with parmesan

What you need

Ingredients for one person

Equipment

Penne (100g | 3.53oz)

Tomato sauce (really depends on your personal taste)

Olive Oil (2 teaspons)

A few basil leaves

A small piece of garlic
(optional) parmesan

Cooking pot

Small frying pan

Something to stir the pasta

On the ingredients

If you have fresh basil, use it. Remember to wash it though.
It goes without saying that good quality ingredients are very important to make a good quality dish. Choose yours carefully (there is a huge difference between different brands of pasta, Barilla and De Cecco are pretty good and can be found almost everywhere).

How you do it
First of all, you have to put water inside your cooking pot. You should put enough so the pasta never sticks out (however, you don't put the pasta in yet).

Standard cooking pot with boiling water

Place the pot on the fire and put some salt in the water. How much salt? It really depends on your personal taste. Try putting a teaspoon at first or "un pugno di sale" [a fistful of salt]: the more you cook, the better you'll become at choosing the right quantity of salt.


Not a very precise way to measure how much salt to use.. but it's very common in Italy

While the water heats up, take your frying pan and put a spoon of olive oil inside it, then throw in the tomato sauce, the basil and the garlic (one or two small pieces), then add some water (100ml, less than half a cup). Now put this on the fire and let it stay there for 10 minutes. Fire shouldn't be very intense.


Frying pan without water and with water

As soon as the water is boiling, put your pasta inside the pot. You will have to stir it periodically so every piece receives the same amount of heat as the others. Stirring also prevents pasta from sticking to the inside of the pot.

Your current situation

You will have to cook your pasta for as long as is stated on the package. If you've already thrown it away.. dont worry: you can grab a penna from the water and eat it. Wait for it to cool down first, then bite it. If it is still crispy o too hard, put it back into the pot, you'll have to wait some more.

An important notice: don't trust the package too much. If you like to eat harder pasta ("al dente") just leave it less time in the pot. If you like it softer, take it easy and let it cook for a couple more minutes. In my opinion, pasta is good when it is still a bit hard (it absolutely mustn't melt in your mouth!). You decide how you like it best.

Pasta al dente (not fully cooked in the middle). I apologize for my horrible macro skills.

When the pasta is ready, pour the content of the pot in your sink through a scolapasta ["colander"] or just pour the water carefully so you don't drop your pasta in the sink.

Scolapasta

We're almost done! Just put the pasta in the frying pan with the tomato sauce and the rest of the ingredients and add some salt, then stir the whole thing for a minute with the cooker on (you won't need much heat now: what we're doing is basically just to let the pasta absorb the flavour of the sauce).