Mussels pasta with cherry tomatoes
Made with Mutti Cherry tomatoes
Renowned for being extremely sweet with an intense fragrant flavour, Mutti Cherry Tomatoes are ripened under the warm sun of southern Italy and carefully selected to offer the freshness of just-harvested fruit all year round. They are soft and succulent yet maintain their form well. As the skin of Mutti Cherry Tomatoes has a thin texture, they are ideal to make quick, delicious sauces or even to use straight out of the tin in place of fresh tomatoes.
Easy
Ingredients
-
4
tablespoons
extra-virgin olive oil
-
2
cloves
garlic skin on, bashed with the palm of your hand
-
3
spring onions, roughly chopped
-
1/2
red chilli thinly sliced, plus extra to garnish
-
200
ml
dry white wine
-
1
handful
of small baby capers in salt, well washed
-
1
x
400 g tin of Mutti Cherry Tomatoes
-
1.5
kg
fresh mussels, cleaned and de-bearded
-
400
g
spaghettini
-
1
handful
of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
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Mussels pasta with cherry tomatoes: Method
- Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil.
- Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over high heat. Add the garlic, spring onion and chilli and toss until the garlic starts to become golden and fragrant. Pour in the wine and cook for about 2 minutes until the alcohol has evaporated, then add the Mutti Cherry Tomatoes and mussels. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and allow the mussels to steam. They will start to open after 1–2 minutes. As they do, fish them out with tongs and set them aside in a clean bowl. Discard any mussels that don’t open.
- In the meantime, drop your spaghettini into the boiling water and blanch for 1 minute to allow the strands to soften and become bendy. Remove the spaghettini with tongs and drop them into the wine and tomato sauce, then pour in enough pasta cooking water to cover the pasta.
- Start stirring gently – the sauce will thicken ever so slightly as the spaghettini soak up all the juices. The spaghettini will take about 5 minutes to reach the perfect al dente texture. Turn off the heat, then return the mussels to the pan, along with 1–2 tablespoons of the precious juices they released while resting. Scatter over the parsley and extra chilli and eat straight away.
- Be sure to serve this with bread. I can guarantee that you will want to have something to soak up that nectar with!
