During our trip to the Bahamas, we ate at a specialty restaurant, Jamie’s Italian. One of the dishes I ordered from the menu was a crab spaghetti dish. The dish featured capers, tomato sauce, lemon, and crab. It wasn’t a very complicated dish, but the flavors worked very well together. After indulging in so many delicious dishes, I made mental notes to recreate some of the dishes when I returned back from my trip. Read more about my trip to the Bahamas here. For lunch today, I tried to recreate the simple pasta dish using some of the ingredients in my pantry. I didn’t have capers at home, so I picked up a jar of capers at the store. For my version, I used the zest of an entire lemon, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, tomato paste, a small can of whole tomatoes, a tablespoon of capers, kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. I made the pasta dish vegetarian friendly by not adding any meat to the dish. Some of my favorite pasta dishes are made with simple ingredients. I also followed the technique from the restaurant of tossing the cooked spaghetti in tomato sauce instead of drenching the spaghetti with the pasta sauce. The pasta dish was the perfect light lunch after a full week of overindulgence on heavy, but very delicious food.
Lemon, Capers, and Tomato Pasta
· ½ package of spaghetti
· 1 teaspoon kosher salt
· ½ tablespoon olive oil
· 1 small (6-ounce) can of tomato paste
· 1 medium (14.5 ounce) can of whole tomatoes (hand crushed) or tomato puree
· ½ teaspoon kosher salt
· ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
· 4 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, freshly grated
· Zest of one lemon
· 1 tablespoon capers
Directions:
1) Heat a large pot filled with water on medium heat. Once the water starts to boil, add a teaspoon of salt to the water. Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the package.
2) Heat a skillet on medium-low heat. Once hot, add ½ tablespoon of olive oil. Add the tomato paste and hand crushed whole tomatoes (or tomato puree) to the skillet. Season with ½ teaspoon of kosher salt and black pepper. Turn off the heat.
3) Once the spaghetti is done cooking, drain the pasta. Toss the spaghetti in the skillet with the tomato sauce. Add the cheese and lemon zest. Toss until spaghetti is coated with the cheesy tomato sauce mixture. Top the spaghetti with the capers. Serve immediately.
Takeaways: The pasta dish is delicious on its own. Feel free to dress up the pasta dish with any fresh vegetables of your choice (if you feel like adding extra servings of vegetables to the dish).