The Greatest Pasta In NYC No One Knows About (and How To Make it)

Today it’s my honor to induct into my Hall of Fame, “Stevie’s Hall of Fame”, a dish from L’Incontro by Rocco – Spaghetti in Tomato Water. It’s a way of eating spaghetti with tomato sauce that I’ve never experienced before. A dish that I experienced for the first time at a hidden gem on the Upper East Side called L’Incontro by Rocco. A pasta that can only be described as “Spectacular”. This is Spaghetti in Tomato Water.

L’Incontro by Rocco on the UES
https://www.lincontrobyrocco.com/

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RECIPE
https://www.notanothercookingshow.tv/post/spaghetti-in-tomato-water
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This is the greatest pasta in New York City that you’ve never heard about. A dish that I experienced for the first time at a hidden gem of an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side called Linkantro by Roco. A truly revolutionary pasta for me and I figured out how to make it. This is spaghetti and tomato water. Now I think I’m going to invent my own little hall of fame, Steviey’s hall of fame of food. restaurant dishes that I’ve eaten that are so good they deserve recognition and allow some people who may never have some of these dishes, whether you live in another country, to be able to make them at home. And now, this is a simple dish. We’re going to need about three pints of cherry tomatoes. Here I’ve got some beautiful farmers market red cherry tomatoes and some sunolds. Just a few of the sunolds. They add an amazing sweetness that’s going to add to the rest of them. And that’s why we’re using cherry tomatoes. The sweetness here is so beautiful and they do have a nice juiciness to them and I almost prefer to use a cherry tomato versus like a Roma tomato that is a little bit more meteor. Now, we kind of got a little bit of these tomatoes to cut. I don’t usually like a method like this, but we don’t really care if we damage the tomatoes at all. We’re kind of extracting their juice. So, here’s a trick to cut a bunch quickly. [Music] We really just need to puncture them cuz these guys can be tricky when they boil down to pop. So, by cutting them just opens a place for some of that juice to expel. I’ve got a pot. I’m just going to add the cut cherry tomatoes to it. Get a bigger knife. Now, if you ever do find yourself on the Upper East Side, you’ve really got to try Link Contro by Roco. It’s one of these sleeper Italian restaurants in New York City. It’s not in the Lower East Side or any of the trendy areas. So, you kind of have to make a trek up town, but trust me, if you need a good spot up town, this is the one. All right. So, I’ve stuffed this to the brim. It’s going to collapse, right? These are going to kind of shrink a bit. So, that’s about as much as I want to add. And then, just to help it get started, I’m going to add just a little water to the bottom of the pan. Then, I’m going to get it onto the stove. Low heat covered. Once we get some liquid going, we’re going to toss in some fresh basil. I’ve got some of the basil stems. We’re going to try and extract that flavor. Pasta is so good. Wait until you taste it. Now, we just want to get them started with the lid on and the heat on a little bit lower. We want to get that water boiling a bit to release the juices of the tomato. And we can add a little bit of salt to it to kind of help release some of that moisture. And once some of that moisture starts to accumulate, we can jack up the heat to get this boiling. And then add in the basil stems and the basil leaves. We just want to cook these tomatoes for about an hour or until they get super soft, almost to the point that all that’s left of them are the skins and the seeds. After about an hour, it looks like those tomatoes have given off all they have to give. Now we can strain them. We got a fine mesh strainer here. A quinoa right here. We got a bowl underneath. We’re going to pour that in. And then I’m just going to try and get as much of that tomato water as we can. That tomato water, that’s the magic. That’s what we’re going to cook our spaghetti in. And what’s great with the skins and everything else, you can run that through a food mill. You could puree it and you can make another sauce with it. You can make tomato jam with it. You can do a lot of stuff. So, it’s not like you got to throw it away. But this is all we’re going to need today. What’s incredible about this pasta is as intense and concentrated and flavorful as this dish is, it only takes two other ingredients than the tomato water. Spaghetti and butter. And we’ll add some basil for color at the end. Simplicity at its finest. Something with so few ingredients that tastes so outrageous. One of the wonders of Italian cooking. We’re going to keep our butter cold. And this is all about technique. Right now, we’re not going to make enough tomato water to actually boil the tomato in them. So, what we’re going to do is finish it in the tomato water. Start it in a pot of boiling water just like we do most pastas or like an ioyo. You start it for like about half the time, a little maybe 2/3 the time in actual boiling water and then you finish it in the sauce or in this case we’re going to put in some of our tomato water and then I’ll show you the technique. Now, once the water is boiling, you can season the water with enough salt so that it tastes almost like a seasoned broth. Then we can go ahead and drop in the pasta. The package says it cooks for about 9 to 10 minutes. So, I’m going to pull it out of the water at around 7. Meanwhile, in a pan or sashier off to the side, turn the heat on low and add in about a cup of the tomato water. I’d say if you’re making this for more people, about a cup of the tomato water per person should get you there. Give the pasta a stir and then we can take out our cold butter out of the fridge and dice that up. For one portion, about 1 to 2 tablespoons should work. Once the pasta has been cooking in the water for about 7 minutes, we’re going to pull it out and add it to the tomato water. I’m going to turn the heat up. And cooking the pasta in the sauce in this pan is going to slow down the cooking process. So, I’m not going to cook it for another 2 minutes to get it to the packaged instructions. I’m going to cook it closer to another 5 minutes in the tomato water. So, in that time, we’re going to swirl that pasta around in the tomato water, releasing some of the starch from the pasta and reducing the tomato water to the point of almost glazing the spaghetti. That reduction is sort of key in the concentrating of the flavor of that sauce. When we’re close to around 5 minutes, we can check the pasta for al dente. And if it’s still under and that tomato water has reduced, we can just treat the tomato water just like we would pasta water by adding a little bit at a time, helping finish that cooking process until the pasta is al dente and the tomato water is glazing the spaghetti. Then we can turn off the heat. We can add in cold butter and swirl and toss that pasta until the butter has completely melted and emulsified into the sauce. The sauce should cling tightly to the spaghetti and it should have a slight pink hue, almost like a vodka sauce. That looks perfect to me and it’s ready to plate. Pick up the pasta with your pasta tongs and using a ladle, cradle it in there and swirl that pasta up into a little bundle just like you would a fork with a spoon. And then transfer that over to the plate and slide it off the ladle and it should maintain a nice bundle. Then top it with a little bit more sauce. If you’re running low in the pan, you can always add a touch more of that pasta water and sort of get a little bit more yield out of the sauce. And then we’re going to finish it with a little bit of basil and a little bit of grated parm. And now this looks like a simple tomato sauce, but wait until you taste it. [Music] It’s extraordinary. It’s tomato sauce like you know, but kind of different. Intensified, concentrated, but smooth. It’s truly like a modern technique meeting an incredible traditional recipe and it’s got such a nice visual appeal to it. The tomatoes are key. Get the right tomatoes. It’s August. Now is the time to make this. It truly is a Hall of Fame dish and I’m going to enjoy it. Recipes going to be down in the description. And if you enjoy these pasta recipes, you’ve got to head on over to the Patreon cooking school where we’re doing pasta 101. two lessons a month, a live stream where we all get together, hang out. It’s becoming quite fun. And you got direct access to me. Link’s going to be down in the description. Go over and check it out. It’s the homechool for home cooks. That’s all that I have today. I’ll see you next time. Until then, take care of yourself and go feed yourself. [Music]