Today's Recipe: Pasta with sun-dried tomatoes

I love this pasta, especially on the days when I find myself out of olive oil. I cannot bring myself to use any other oil for Italian cooking, and the olive oil in which the tomatoes are preserved works perfectly well for cooking the garlic. Sun-dried tomatoes are available everywhere in India, both in oil as well as the dried variety; I of course prefer the one in oil -- for obvious reasons!

Ingredients

• 1 packet pasta, spaghetti or linguini
• 100 gm sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil
• 2 pods garlic, chopped
• A handful of basil or any fresh herbs like parsley
• A pinch of dried oregano
• 1 dried red chilly
• The oil the tomatoes were packed in
• Salt to season

Method

• Coarsely shred the tomatoes.
• In a pan, heat the oil in which tomatoes were packed.
• Add the garlic, the basil, the whole chilly, and a pinch of salt.
• Add tomatoes and cook for no more than two minutes.
• Cook the pasta in abundant salted water. Drain it when it is al dente, transfer it to a bowl.
• Add the contents of your pan to the pasta, and season with a dusting of oregano
• Eat at once!

Previous recipes

• Simple grilled fish
• Cold Italian soup for a hot day
• Lip-smackingly good mozzarella in a carriage
• Italian cauliflower pasta
• Sicilian eggplant and rice salad
• Sumptuous meat stew in 15 minutes
• Yummy Italian 'tamaatar toasts'
• Italian fish with a citrus twist
• Simple, sinful roast chicken
• Delicious Italian-style cheese and onion omelet
• Easy, cheesy zucchini carbonara pasta
• Speedy tomato-basil pasta
• Spaghetti aglio Olio e Peperoncino

Excerpted from Italian Khana, India's first Italian cookbook for the Indian kitchen, with permission from the publishers, Random House India. Ritu will also answer reader queries, so please address your questions to her in the QnA box below.

Photograph: Sephi Bergerson