The simplest pasta dish

 I really like the videos of YouTube's Anti-Chef, a guy who tries to reproduce dishes from classic cookbook authors like Julia Child or Michelin-star restaurant chefs. These recipes are often insanely complex and time-consuming, taking an entire day to cook. I like cooking, but not that much. And most of these dishes involve meat, which I've stopped eating. So what I'm saying is, I watch videos from this channel mostly for the entertainment, not for the instruction.

But today was an exception. This dish takes some time (1 hour plus), but it's just about the simplest recipe you can imagine, with the most basic ingredients. The result was great and well worth it.

First, boil a big batch of water. Cut a cross into the skin of 450g of Roma tomatoes, as ripe as you can find, then plunge them in the water for one minute.Take them out again, leave to cool, and then take off the skins. Cut each tomato into quarters, cut out the hard stems, and put them in a saucepan, along with juices. Cover and put on a medium fire for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, peel and halve an onion (don't shred it!) and measure 35g butter.

After the 10 minutes, blend the tomatoes (I used a hand blender to blend in the pan), add the butter and onion halves, and bring to the boil. Put on a very low fire and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes.

Now make your pasta for 2. In my case, I made gnocchi, which take only 1 minute of boiling time, but you can use any pasta you like. Just make sure the pasta is timed to be finished together with the sauce. Then just drain the pasta, divide over 2 plates, remove the halved onion from the saucepan, and evenly divide the sauce over the 2 plates. Grate some Parmesan over it and you're done!