Sorrento-Style Baked Pasta (Penne alla Sorrentina)

This mindblowingly simple pasta dish from Sorrento, Italy makes magic from cherry tomatoes, penne pasta and mozzarella - and it's baked!

This refreshingly simple pasta dish comes from the Italian city of Sorrento, now a popular tourist haunt on the Amalfi Coast. I visited 10 years ago when I inter-railed through the country and I tried this dish in Capri, just off the coast of Sorrento. You will often hear that Italians will never bake their pasta - however, for this dish they will! Penne alla Sorrentina uses easily-available penne pasta tubes combined with a rich cherry tomato sauce. The pasta is spooned into a metal dish, dotted with torn basil (or sometimes mint actually) and chunked mozzarella cheese and briefly flashed to the oven/grill. The cheese should barely melt - just don’t let it brown - and you’re rewarded with a rich, sweet-sour tomato sauce that’s heaving with creamy, white puddles of cheese. Mozzarella is held in equally high regard just up the road in Naples, where pizza chefs will bake their famous Neapolitan pizzas without browning the cheese. It’s a skill! Let’s go!

INGREDIENTS (serves 2x)

• 300g dried pasta (ideally penne or fussili)

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 2 tsps tomato puree

• 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes

• 2x cloves garlic, diced

• 300g cherry tomatoes (fresh or canned)

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/4 tsp black pepper

• 1 tsp sugar

• handful of fresh basil or mint, torn

• 1x ball fresh mozzarella cheese, diced

WALKTHROUGH

1. Let’s make the cherry tomato sauce. Place a saucepan onto medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil followed by 2 tsps of tomato paste. Fry the tomato paste until deep red and the oil is stained orange.

   

2. Add the 2x cloves of diced garlic and 1/4 tsp chilli flakes and fry briefly until aromatic - make sure they don’t brown.

3. Add 300g cherry tomatoes/canned tomatoes and bring the pan contents up to a boil. Simmer the tomatoes for 15-20 minutes until tender.

   

4. Mash the tomatoes gently with a spoon to break them up. Simmer the sauce for a further 5-10 minutes until rich and deep red. Season the sauce with 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper and 1 tsp sugar, or to suit your taste.

5. Now let’s cook the pasta. Place a pan of water onto boil. Once the water is boiling, salt it generously and add your 300g penne pasta. Cook the pasta to the packet instructions, allowing a minute or two earlier to keep the pasta ‘al dente’.

   

6. Toss cooked pasta into the tomato sauce and mix until well-coated.

   

7. Spoon the sauced pasta into an oven dish and spread even. Scatter the pasta with torn basil leaves, using a teaspoon to poke the leaves down into the belly of the pasta. Dot the pasta with diced chunks of fresh mozzarella, pushing them gently into the pasta but keeping them visible on the surface.

   

   

   

8. Place the pasta dish under a grill/broiler for 5 minutes (or a 180C oven) until the cheese has just melted, but not browned. This will usually take 5 minutes.

   

   

9. Remove the pasta from the heat and serve immediately. Watch out, the cheese is extra hot and stretchy! Enjoy!