Tomato and Pesto Cream Pasta

This has been a family favorite for a while. My four year old gobbles it up, and it’s the one meal he consistently thanks me for making completely unprompted. Anyone with a young kid in the house knows that both the gobbling and the thanking are not always regular things, and so this shows up on the family dinner table with some regularity.

There’s so much intense and comforting flavor going on here that this is also a dish that can be made and served out of season using good canned tomatoes (like the lovely big tins from Italy of San Marzanos packed with a basil leaf that are always hidden on the dusty bottom shelf of every grocery tomato section). But this dish is at its very most luscious in August and September when we can get our hands on fresh tomatoes straight from the garden and melt them down with chopped onions and a good olive oil.

If you’re like us and make big batches of pesto to freeze and then eat throughout the winter, with a little practice on timing, you can actually get this to the table in 30-40 minutes.

Ingredients

4 oz pesto (any kind you like)
1 lb fettuccine (we used homemade just because we like to show off)
1 medium sized onion—diced
2-3 TBSP olive oil
6 large tomatoes (peeled and chopped) or 2-14 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 TBSP MadHouse Vinegar Red wine vinegar
a pinch of sugar
1 tsp honey
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 egg yolks
11/2 cups grated parmesan or romano cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Start water boiling for pasta (salt the water liberally—less for store bought pasta, more for homemade pasta).

Heat olive oil in a large fry pan. Add onions and sauté with a sprinkle of sugar and salt to help break the onions down. Add tomatoes, and sauté to soften. Add vinegar and continue to sauté until most of the liquid from tomatoes and vinegar has evaporated, then add a cup or two of water and let the whole mixture simmer on medium heat. Check frequently to make sure it doesn’t dry completely and burn. You can add small bits of water as you go if necessary to keep the sauce going. The target is to melt the tomatoes. They won’t completely become a smooth sauce unless the whole thing is pureed, but the tomatoes should release most of their substance and become loose limp bits of tomato in a red sauce.

While that is simmering, mix up cream sauce. Beat lightly together a half cup of the grated cheese, the cream, and the egg yolk.

When the tomatoes are melted to your satisfaction, prepare to add your cream sauce. To keep the cream sauce from breaking when added to the hot tomato sauce, you will have to temper it. While rapidly beating your cream sauce add a TBSP of hot tomato sauce at a time until the cream sauce is luke warm (just test with a clean finger—we’re all friends here). Once luke warm, you can safely stir the cream sauce into the tomato sauce. Turn off heat.

Cook pasta noodles. When al dente, take a scant 1/4 cup and add it to the tomato cream sauce. Drain noodles. While draining, add pesto to tomato sauce and stir until combined. Add drained noodles and toss well.

Serve with a healthy floof of parmesan cheese on top.