by Akemi

Created on: June 08, 2008

TOMATO, BASIL and CHEESE. I would say these three ingredients are the real basic ingredients in Italian dishes. These 3 ingredients can create many dishes we are all familiar like tomato, basil and mozzarella margherita pizza or tomato, basil and mozzarella Caprese salad or tomato, basil and mozzarella brushetta or pasta. Fresh GREEN basil, soft WHITE Mozzarella cheese and ripe RED tomato. Notice that each ingredient's color represents the color of an Italian flag? No unfortunately this is not how they came up with the colors. GREEN represents hope, WHITE represents faith and RED represents charity and the colors came from the colors of the uniforms of the Civic militia of Milan. Being half Italian myself, I love to cook Italian dishes with a whole a lot of passion! This pasta dish is really the basic of the basics!

Ingredients-
4 fresh tomatoes
1 or 2 clove garlic
Fresh basil
Fresh Mozzarella
cup white wine
Olive oil

Method-
1) Slice the garlic and put into a pan with plenty olive oil, add the diced up fresh tomatoes into the pan before the garlic gets brown and cook it.

2) When the tomatoes are cooked add cup white wine if you have, using a wooden spatula smash up the tomatoes and let it cook on low heat till the sauce gets thick. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

3) If the sauce is thick enough add the chopped up basil and fresh mozzarella cheese and mix it with the boiled pasta.

Extra tip-
If you peel the tomato skin it is even better but you don't need to you can dip the tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds and run it under cold water, the skin will peel off really easily.
If you don't have any fresh tomatoes you can use diced tomato can.
If you like spicy, you can throw some hot red pepper in step 1.
If you don't have white wine, don't worry it will still be delicious without it.
If you don't have fresh mozzarella cheese, don't worry it is good without it too!

Lastly, do not use any other oil than olive oil because olive oil is what makes it so flavorful! Don't only use 1 table spoon just because you have nonstick pan, use plenty for the flavor. I even pour some extra virgin olive oil on my pasta. In Italy you will see olive oil on the table in most restaurant cause it is one of the seasonings just like salt and pepper.

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