Sicilian Pasta Salad with Pachino Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Olive Oil

The Giant Bowl on the Table

A Sicilian pasta salad, the world's greatest tomato and an Italian World Cup tradition.

The Sicilian way to watch World Cup involves cherry tomatoes and a giant bowl. Pachino cherry tomatoes are in season in the spring and summer, aligning with the World Cup games every four years. The result is a colorful yet simple pasta the crowds will enjoy. Someone makes a giant bowl of pasta salad in the morning, puts it in the middle of the table, and for the next ninety minutes people just dig in. At kick-off. Between goals. During corners. At halftime if they can pull themselves away.

My husband grew up with this bowl on the table. He describes it with a smile on his face: pasta, fresh mozzarella, basil and Pachino cherry tomatoes so red and so sweet. Green, white and red. The Italian flag in a bowl. Summer in a bite.

It's a World Cup summer. The whole world is watching football. And we can't stop thinking about the giant bowl.

What are Pachino tomatoes, and why are they special?

Pachino is a small town at the very southern tip of Sicily, in the province of Siracusa, the same corner of the island where our olive trees grow. It has the highest number of daylight hours in all of Europe, and that light does something extraordinary to tomatoes. The Pachino cherry tomato has PDO status, meaning its name is protected by European law: a tomato can only be called a Pachino if it actually comes from there. Like Champagne. Like Parmigiano. Like our olive oil, which comes from the same soil, the same sun, the same southeastern Sicilian terroir.

What makes them different is hard to describe without just telling you to taste one. They're sweeter than you expect a tomato to be. Denser. More intensely themselves. When you slice one open the flesh is deep red all the way through and the smell is the smell of a real tomato, the kind that reminds you that most of what gets sold as a tomato in a supermarket is a different object entirely.

In the Siracusa area they're eaten constantly in summer — raw, roasted, in pasta, on bread. But the highest and best use, according to the Sicilian men who grew up eating them, is in a cold pasta salad made the morning of a long day and left on the table for whoever needs it.

The recipe: Sicilian pasta salad for a match day

World Cup Pasta al Pachino

(Serves a crowd from one giant bowl)

Ingredients:

• 500g short pasta (fusilli, mezze maniche or rigatoni work well)
• 400g Pachino cherry tomatoes, halved (or the best cherry tomatoes you can find)
• 250g fresh mozzarella, torn into pieces
• A large handful of fresh basil
• Salt, to taste
• Pegaso EVOO — enough to make it glisten

Instructions:

• Cut the cherry tomatoes in half (in quarters if you have time) and put them into a large bowl. Add a teaspoon of salt and start mixing them. Best way is through two large spoons, starting from the bottom of the bowl and lifting the cherry tomatoes up to the top, in a gentle and slow circular move that is like a relaxing massage for them. Doing it for approximately two to three minutes will make the whole thing start to produce a delicious foam, from the juice of the cherry tomatoes. Keep doing it for two more minutes.
• Add half of the fresh basil leaves and 2 tablespoons of Pegaso EVOO to enrich the juice. Mix it for two more minutes and let it rest.
• Cook the pasta until just al dente and…don’t drain it! Turn the heat off and use a skimmer or slotted spoon to take the pasta out from the cooking water and to put into a large bowl. Toss immediately with a generous pour of olive oil so it doesn't stick. Let it cool completely. 
• Add the tomatoes, torn mozzarella and basil. Season with salt. Add more olive oil. Taste it. Add a little more olive oil. Mix
• Put it in the biggest bowl you own and leave it on the table. Do not portion it. Do not serve it formally. That is not how we do the giant bowl of pasta.

Why the olive oil matters in this dish

The olive oil here is doing quiet but essential work. It's what ties the tomatoes to the pasta, what keeps the mozzarella from tasting flat, what makes the basil bloom. Use a good one! Use one that comes from the same part of Sicily as the tomatoes :) It makes a difference, believe it or not.

In Italy, food is love. It's also, on match days, the thing that keeps everyone from losing their minds entirely. Make the bowl big. The game will take care of the rest.

Taste the olive oil from the same corner of Sicily as the Pachino tomato. 

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