Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Penne with Fresh Tomatoes and Mozzarella

When I was a teenager in New York City, some friends of mine would always visit this restaurant, Mezzaluna, on third avenue on the upper east side of Manhattan. Back then, Mezzaluna was probably the nicest, fanciest, most expensive Italian restaurant I had been to, and it was very different from the kinds of Italian American family food I had grown up with. There was no chicken “scarp” or baked ziti. Nothing was served “family style.” There was brick oven pizza, which was wafer thin, with only a gloss of the softest tomatoes and mozzarella I had ever seen, dashed with a basil leaf here and there. There was black linguini with a spicy crab sauce. There was actual, real carpaccio. The brusque staff spoke with true Italian accents, not Italian American, if you know what I mean, and if I’m being honest, the clientele was mostly that version of Upper East Side that, at the time, having not grown up with it, I did not and could not relate to (old money). As I look back on it now, however, so much of it was revelatory for me, but that, I guess, is another story.

Two dishes from my fondest memories of Mezzaluna have made it into my family’s repertoire of home cooking – and this Penne with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella is the first. Some important notes on our choice of ingredients and technique, first.

One, we use only fresh tomatoes from the garden for this dish, and only when they are in season, and since we grow an assortment of tomatoes every year – that is what I will usually choose for this dish, but it is by no means required. I have made this dish with all plum tomatoes, all cherry tomatoes, and all heirloom varieties (which tend to rotate year to year in our garden – e.g., this year we are growing an heirloom variety called Black Krim), but the version I generally prefer is a blend of all the tomatoes we grow because it provides a depth of richness and flavor that you will not find with one single variety of tomato.

Two, all of the tomatoes should be chopped to basically the same size, regardless of their variety, and they should be weighed. Cherry tomatoes are quartered, so all of the other tomatoes should be prepared to that same size – roughly one-half to three-quarters of an inch. Keep dicing and chopping and weighing the tomatoes and putting them in a bowl on the scale until you get to about 1000g of fresh tomatoes.

Three, a fresh ball of mozzarella (roughly 8-9 ounches) should be cubed to the same size as the tomatoes.

Four, the real trick to this dish is actually very simple: Melt half of the tomatoes. After you have cooked and drained the pasta (al dente, of course) let it sit to one side with a drizzle of olive oil while you prep the sauce, and here is the key instruction: Return the pot to the flame and let it warm back up. Add butter and olive oil, add the slivers of garlic, and add half the tomatoes with a pinch or two of basil. Sauté the tomatoes in garlic and butter and oil for exactly 3 minutes on medium heat. They will melt. This is good. Have a sip of wine and enjoy the moment. It is August, and tomatoes are in season. Outside the world is fair, and beautiful, and just – and for this one perfect moment you are exactly who and where you are meant to be.

Return the pasta to the pot with the melted tomatoes. Add the remaining fresh tomatoes on top, the rest of the julienned basil, season gently with coarse Kosher salt, and pull it all together, turning the ingredients slowly in the pot to combine.

Five, and this is really crucial: Let it rest before you add the cheese. Remove from the heat (just slide the whole pot over one place to a cooler spot on the stove top) and let it rest exactly two minutes. Then add the mozzarella cubes, and once more, slowly pull it all together to incorporate the cheese. The pot will still be warm enough that the cheese will begin to melt, but only ever so slightly.

Then – Plate immediately in large, shallow bowls. Garnish with very thinly sliced Parmesan and a dash of Maldon Sea Salt, to your taste.

tutto bene.

Ingredients

• 1 box of (organic) Penne (or any Mill Valley Pasta Co. selection*)
• About 1000g chopped tomatoes (mix of plum, heirloom, beefsteak, cherry, or whatever is fresh) cut into ¾” cubes
• 2-3 large garlic cloves, sliced very thin
• 8-9 oz. fresh mozzarella (one whole ball), cut into ¾” cubes (one slice set aside for snacking)
• 5 medium-large leaves of fresh basil, julienned
• 3 tablespoons good butter (salted or unsalted, to your taste)
• 6 tablespoons plus Olio Nuovo or good Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Coarse Kosher sea salt (3 decent pinches)
• Maldon Sea Salt (one small pinch per plate, garnish)
• Very thinly shaved Parmesan (garnish)

Instructions

• Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, and cook the pasta 6-12 minutes, stirring it along the way so it doesn’t stick to the bottom. 8-10 minutes is usually the sweet spot for the kind of pasta we use at home (Mill Valley Pasta Co). It should be only very gently resistant, not too soft, “to the tooth” as the say, aka “al dente.”
• Drain the pasta, drizzle a tablespoon or two of olive oil on top, and let it rest for three minutes while you prep the tomatoes.
• Return the pot to the heat, and reduce the flame to medium.
• Add the butter and remaining olive oil. Add the garlic. Add half the tomatoes. Add a pinch of Kosher salt, and add a pinch of fresh julienned basil. Cook 3 minutes, exactly.
• Return the pasta to the pot at the three minute timer. Add the remaining tomatoes and basil, 1-2 pinches of Kosher salt, and gently stir to combine. (Add more olive oil as needed, if it looks dry – you can’t really overdo the olive oil on this recipe if it is good quality.) Let it rest for 2 minutes more.
• Add the cubed mozzarella, and again gently stir to combine it all together.
• Plate it in a shallow bowl right away, and garnish with Maldon Sea Salt (to your liking) and shaved Parmesan.

* A note of the pasta: This recipe is written for Penne, but as you can see, we didn’t use Penne this time. That is because we prefer organic pasta and like to support the Mill Valley Pasta Co., which uses only organic flour in their pasta. They do not, however, make Penne. So we go with the flow, and you know what? It still tastes amazing 🙂