Spiral pasta tossed with salami, bocconcini, olives, cherry tomatoes and a sharp homemade Italian dressing. It sits happily on a table for a couple of hours while people pick at it. The trick is in the dressing: a splash of the pasta cooking water emulsifies it and gives you more of it, so the salad stays juicy instead of drying out. Pick up your tomatoes, basil and bocconcini at Queen Victoria Market, delivered to your door or via Click & Collect!
Serves 8. Feeding 4? Just halve the ingredients.
Ingredients
Dressing
- ½ cup (125ml) extra virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup (60ml) red wine vinegar
- 1½ tablespoons parmesan, freshly grated
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon dried parsley
- ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes (optional)
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 3 tablespoons reserved pasta cooking water
Salad
- 300g spiral pasta
- 180g thick-sliced salami, cut into 2.5cm batons
- 200g baby bocconcini, halved
- 1 red capsicum, cut into 2 to 3cm strips
- 250g whole olives (Sicilian green and pitted black)
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved (about 1½ punnets)
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves, tightly packed
Method
- Cook the pasta in well-salted boiling water for 1 minute less than the packet says. Before you drain it, scoop out a mug of the cooking water and set it aside.
- Drain the pasta and rinse under cold water to stop it cooking, then shake off the excess well. Rinsing goes against everything you’d do for a hot pasta dish, but here it washes off the surface starch that would otherwise glue the salad into a single lump as it cools.
- Put all the dressing ingredients in a jar along with 3 tablespoons of the reserved pasta water and shake hard. The starch in that water emulsifies with the oil, giving you more dressing without thinning the flavour.
- Grate the parmesan fresh if you can. Pre-grated parmesan won’t dissolve into the dressing, so if that’s what you have, sprinkle it over the finished salad instead.
- Tip the pasta into a large bowl with the salami, bocconcini, capsicum, olives, cherry tomatoes and basil.
- Pour over all but 3 tablespoons of the dressing and toss. Hold that last bit back in the jar.
- Serve at room temperature. Fridge-cold pasta tastes dry and flat, so give it time out of the fridge before it goes on the table.
- If you’re serving it the next day, bring it back to room temperature and toss through the reserved dressing to freshen it up. It’s arguably better on day two.
Adapted from RecipeTin Eats
