Recipe: Creamy Garlic Herb Sauce

Creamy Garlic Herb Sauce

A breeze to prepare, this creamy sauce marries a garlicky herb-flecked cheese spread with little more than fresh tomatoes, snippets of chives, and parsley. Save some of the pasta cooking water in case you need to thin the cheese to a creamier consistency.

1 package (about 5 ounces) garlic-and-herb cheese spread, such as Boursin,
crumbled, at room temperature
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 pound fresh, ripe tomatoes, seeded and coarsely diced
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup snipped fresh chives
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

1. Combine cheese spread, Parmesan cheese, tomatoes, salt, and pepper in pasta serving bowl. Set aside to warm to room temperature or, preferably, place the bowl (be sure it's heatproof) over the pasta pot to warm the ingredients while heating the water. Once the water comes to a boil, remove bowl and set aside.

2. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain pasta well, reserving about 1/4 cup hot pasta water, and immediately add pasta to sauce in bowl. Sprinkle with chives and parsley and toss, adding about 1 to 2 tablespoons of the reserved pasta water, if necessary for creaminess. Adjust with more pasta water, if needed, and serve at once. Pass the peppermill.

Serves 4

Recommended pasta: 12 ounces fettuccine, fusilli, penne rigate, ziti rigate.

Recipe from:
Joie Warner's No Cook Pasta Sauces
by Joie Warner
Photography by Drew Warner
Chronicle Books
1998, Softcover, US $17.95
ISBN: 0-8118-1766-0
Full-color photographs throughout Information provided by the publisher