Cherry Tomato Garlic Butter Burrata Pasta

Sometimes the simplest dishes are the ones that stick with you and this garlic butter burrata pasta is one of those. It's silky, it's easy to make, it takes about 20 minutes to put together and it's one of those dishes that feels like a restaurant quality dish made in your home. We'll start with the prep. We're going to need 200 grams or 7 ounces of cherry tomatoes. I'm using Roma cherries and all we need to do is slice these in half. You can slice them into quarters and if you don't want to use cherry tomatoes you can use regular tomatoes. Just dice them and make sure that they're all the same size. I like to use cherry tomatoes for these types of recipes. They're a lot sweeter and they cook down really nicely. Next is the garlic. We need four cloves that have been freshly peeled and all we need to do is go through and thinly slice. You can mince and grate them if you prefer but for this recipe I like those sliced pieces. You'll have more surface area and you're going to get that nice nutty crunch. Lastly I've got one bunch of basil. Just go through and then pick off the leaves and save the stems as well. These are great for infusing sauces. Even if you're not using it in this recipe you can save them and chuck them in other things that you want to get that nice fragrance in there and we can use the basil for two parts in this recipe. One can be added into the sauce and then the other can be used as a garnish at the end. Get a pan onto your stovetop and place this over a medium medium high heat. With the pan heating up just add in about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Add in the cherry tomatoes, a pinch of salt, touch of cracked black pepper and then saute these for about three to four minutes or until they're blistered and completely falling apart. If they start to darken too quickly just make sure you turn that pan down a little bit and keep them moving so nothing burns. Now you can use canned tomatoes for this recipe but they're a lot more acidic. You're not going to get the true sweetness from a fresh tomato. You will have to add sugar to balance that out but with these these are naturally sweet. You can add sugar as well if you find they are too acidic but most of the time you don't need to do that. Once they really start to soften up you can use the back of a spatula or spoon whatever you're using and just slightly push them down to crush them. Those skins and all the pulp is going to release it's going to create even more flavor. Don't cook these too far we are only looking for something that looks like this. At this point we'll add in one tablespoon or 14 grams of unsalted butter. You can also add in all of that garlic that we sliced up before. Continue mixing this around allow that butter to melt through it's just going to create a really nice silky sauce and break up that garlic because it can clump up. Cook this for about a minute to two minutes just until you get that really nice fragrant garlic flavor going through your house as well as in the pan. Now once you have that done the tomatoes are broken down and the garlic has softened up releasing its fragrance we can add in one quarter of a cup or 60 milliliters of chicken stock, vegetable stock or dry white wine if you do consume alcohol. Just mix this through let this reduce down for about two minutes it's going to intensify the flavor create depth and just rip up any of that flavor that's stuck on the bottom of the pan. Now at this point generously season a pot of water with some salt add in 300 grams or 10.5 ounces of any pasta of your choice. I'm using fettuccine but linguine is also good too. Twirl it into the water and cook this for about two minutes less than the packet instructions we want it nice and al dente which means it has that bite still. Now coming back to our sauce just let this reduce down on the lowest setting until that pasta is cooked. Once this is reduced down you have a nice thick sauce those tomatoes really have blistered up. I'm going to add in about half a teaspoon of chili flakes you can do this at the beginning when you add the garlic or you can add it now doesn't really matter too much and it is completely optional as well. At this point I'm going to grate in the zest from about a quarter of a lemon just for that nice little fragrant infusion in there. You don't have to do this if you don't want to I am also going to be adding the lemon juice as well. Get that in there cut about a quarter of that lemon off and just make sure that there's no seeds in there squeeze in the juice just to add that nice little bit of acidity. Add in the drained pasta and at this point I'm going to add in a little bit of those fresh basil leaves. What we need to do now is fold this all together get those tomatoes mixed completely over the pasta and get those basil leaves slightly wilted down. This is also over a low heat still as well we don't want too much high heat in there we don't want to dry anything out. So once it's mixed you'll have something that looks like this the sauce isn't too wet that's actually what we want. Add in one tablespoon or 14 grams of unsalted butter. Grate in about a third of a cup or 40 grams of parmesan cheese. The amounts really are up to you you don't have to follow a weight just do as much as you like. Then we can start mixing all of this through we're going to create an emulsion with that parmesan as well as some remaining pasta water because that starchy water in there just helps things stick and it's just a nice little way to make a creamy sauce without the addition of cream. Consistency wise it is a matter of preference of course the more liquid you add the more saucier it's going to be but I don't recommend adding in any more than a cup of that reserved pasta water. All we need to do is mix this around until you're happy with it until that sauce is emulsified and become nice and thick just make sure it's nice and hot as well before you remove it from the stovetop and at this point you can add more cheese you can add more basil just double check it for seasoning and once you're happy remove it from the stovetop. As far as serving up goes this recipe will probably serve two to three people probably get one massive portion if you really wanted to but realistically speaking it will serve two people. What I have here is a bowl of burrata probably don't need to use the whole thing but if I break it open it's going to go everywhere so we'll just use the one for this recipe. Garnish the cheese with more cheese because why not. I've got a little bit of sliced basil here that I'm just going to spread over the top you can also tear it by hand but I think sliced or thinly sliced basil looks a lot better. Add a touch of cracked black pepper for that finishing touch, tiny little bit of sea salt flakes and a lemon wedge to finish it off. So that's it, this dish is pure comfort it comes together in about 20 minutes you can swap and change things make it your own there is only one thing left to do and that is we can break open that burrata just mix it all through and then we can then dig in. That is absolutely incredible!