Favourite Straw & Hay Pasta

Paglia e fieno, literally “straw and hay," is the Italian name for the two-tone tangle of yellow egg fettuccine and green spinach fettuccine in this dish. Twirled together with a raw tomato sauce, the strands look like just-mown summer hay across a pale plate.

The sauce is barely a sauce. Olive oil is warmed gently with garlic and red pepper flakes until the garlic just begins to sizzle, then pulled off the heat to steep. That low, slow infusion is the whole technique. It pulls the sweetness out of the garlic without browning it bitter.

The warm oil gets poured straight over chopped raw tomatoes so the heat coaxes out the juice without cooking the fruit down. Hot pasta goes in next, fresh basil on top, a few tosses, dinner.

Kitchen Tips

• Use the ripest, in-season tomatoes you can find. This is a raw sauce, so flavor is everything. Off-season tomatoes will taste hollow.
• Watch the garlic closely while warming. The moment it sizzles is the moment to kill the heat. Browned garlic turns the whole oil acrid.
• Salt the pasta water generously. With such a minimal sauce, the seasoning of the pasta itself carries the dish.
• Toss the hot drained pasta with the tomatoes immediately so the residual heat warms the tomatoes and releases their juice into the oil.
• Slive the basil at the very last second. Cut too early, it bruises and turns black at the edges.

Variations

• Add a crumbled handful of fresh ricotta or burrata on top just before serving for a richer, creamier finish.
• Toss in a handful of pitted Kalamata olives and a few capers for a punchier, more southern Italian profile.
• Use cherry tomatoes halved instead of chopped large tomatoes when full-size beefsteaks are out of season.