To me, pasta is the perfect food: endlessly versatile yet always satisfying (that toothsome al dente bite!). I crave it year round. In winter, I want a short pasta topped with a hearty ragù. But in the summer, I want something lighter and brighter, that doesn’t put me in a food coma, and doesn’t require a long time sweating over a hot stove.

This is that recipe. Marrying zingy lemons with aromatic herbs and fresh pasta, it tastes like far, far more than the sum of its parts, due to a technique in which you effectively finish cooking the pasta in olive oil and lemon juice, rather than just drizzling them on top. The pasta really absorbs the flavors and becomes so silky smooth. Yet this dish comes together in less than thirty minutes, making it the perfect thing for summer afternoons when the golden light tricks you into thinking it is 5, when it is really 8:30.

So stay out, go for a wander, and while away an hour or two with some iced rosé. Then come home and make this. I can’t think of a better way to spend a summer evening.

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Fettuccine with rosemary and lemon

Serves 3
Adapted from Patricia Wells’ The Provence Cookbook, via NPR

Ingredients

1 pound (500g) fresh fettuccine, tagliatelle, or linguine (fresh, rather than dried, is important here, because you’re using so few ingredients)
1/2 cup (120 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup (120mL) freshly squeezed lemon juice (again, must be freshly squeezed, not from the squirt bottle, please)
2-3 tablespoons mix of fresh rosemary and fresh thyme leaves, or just fresh rosemary, minced
2 cups (8 ounces) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Fine sea salt to taste

Instructions

Fill a big pot with water. Salt. Bring water to a rolling boil over high heat.

Add the pasta. Cook, but do not cook all the way–not even until al dente. For me, I start checking for doneness at the 1-minute mark. You want this to be significantly undercooked for now. Drain the pasta, reserving about 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. (My favorite way to reserve cooking water without burning myself or making a mess is to take a coffee mug and dunk it in the pot before draining the pasta.)

Turn down the heat to medium-low or low. Add olive oil and lemon juice to pot and heat until just warm. Then add the drained pasta, tossing it with the oil and lemon juice. Now start adding the pasta cooking water, tablespoon by tablespoon, tossing gently as you go, until the pasta is cooked to your liking. (Just test a piece or two every 30 seconds or minute or so to see if it’s done how you like it.) Add the herbs and half of the cheese, toss once more. If it seems dry, add another tablespoon of reserved cooking water as you’re taking the pasta off the heat.

Divide into pasta bowls, drizzle with a bit of extra olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and serve, passing the remaining cheese around the table.