This tomatoey pasta salad was a standby of Adriana Lotti, who was head of staff at the academic program my father directed for a number of years in Rome. It requires first-rate tomatoes and is wonderful when it's hot.

See Also

Other picnic foods

Other pasta salads

Pasta Basics

Ingredients

• 1 pound ripe plum tomatoes, blanched, peeled, seeded and chopped (in the winter you can used drained canned tomatoes)
  
• 2 tablespoons salted or pickled capers, rinsed
  
• 5 leaves coarsely torn basil (or to taste)
  
• Olive oil (about a quarter cup, or to taste)
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1 pound penne or other short thick-walled pasta

• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes

• Total Time: 40 minutes
• Yield: 4-6 servings pasta salad

Preparation

Cook the pasta until until al dente in lightly salted water, drain it, and cool it by running cold water over the colander.

While you are cooking the pasta, combine the other ingredients, check seasoning, and chill them in a bowl. When the pasta has cooled, mix it into the sauce.

This is, as you have no doubt noted, extremely simple. Feel free to modify it, for example by adding pitted black olives as well.

Another option, which would make it into a full meal rather than a picnic accompaniment (specially if served with a green salad), would be a half pound of shredded mozzarella.

The wine? I might go with a rosato, for example from Castel del Monte Rosato.

Yield: 4-6 servings tomatoey pasta salad.