Michael Symon's Fettuccine with Smoked Tomato Sauce _ Symon's Dinners Cooking Out _ Food Network

The Art of Cooking a Hearty Pasta Dish

To begin with, we start by preparing our pasta. We take a full dice on this guy we left the roots on because we're gonna dice it if we're gonna slice, so we carefully remove the roots and proceed to dice the remaining portion into small cubes. We then spin it flat end is towards us, go 90 percent of the way through again, creating perfectly diced pasta.

Next, we turn our attention to cooking the bacon. We take a little bit of bacon, crisp it up slightly, but not too much, as we want to render fat and get slightly crispy. The goal is not to make the bacon crunchy, but rather to bring out its natural flavors. As the bacon crisps, we prepare our aromatics by chopping fresh garlic and herbs such as oregano, thyme, and rosemary. We also add a pinch of salt to the onions and garlic to enhance their flavor.

With our aromatics prepared, we add them to the pan with the bacon, along with some chili flakes if desired. We then pour in a small amount of white wine, which will reduce by half as it cooks down, adding depth and richness to our sauce. As the wine reduces, we scrape up any caramelized bits from the bottom of the pan, which have accumulated during the cooking process.

While the wine is reducing, we add diced tomatoes to the pan, allowing them to simmer in their own juices. We also take a moment to prepare some fresh herbs, including oregano and thyme, and chop them up roughly. These will be added to our sauce later, as well as some grated parmesan cheese.

As the sauce continues to cook down, we add it to our perfectly cooked pasta, which has been tossed with some olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. We then take out any excess water from the pasta to ensure that it coats evenly with the sauce. The result is a harmonious balance of flavors, with each component complementing the others.

Finally, we plate our dish by sprinkling some grated parmesan cheese over the top and adding a few sprigs of fresh parsley and basil. We also add a nub of butter to the pasta, which melts into the sauce, adding richness and depth to the dish. The result is a hearty pasta dish that is sure to please even the most discerning palates.

In the kitchen, it's all about balance and harmony. Each component must be carefully considered and balanced in order to create a truly exceptional dish. In this case, we've managed to achieve just that – a perfectly cooked pasta dish that showcases the natural flavors of each ingredient. Whether you're a seasoned chef or an inexperienced cook, following these steps will help you create a delicious meal that's sure to impress.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ena smoky tomato pasta with a little bit of smoked bacon so i use these vine ripened tomatoes they are beautiful you could use heirlooms cherries romas whichever tomato looks ripest to you at the grocery store would be great does that mean i can't use canned tomatoes liv don't sound nervous i always let you substitute you can use canned tomatoes the beauty of a canned tomatoes it's already super sweet but you're going to want to drain off the liquid before you smoke them you can reserve that liquid then add it to your pan go liberal with the salt so i could do this on an oven indoors right you could do this on an almond indoor you won't get the smokiness but remember we're doing this with bacon so you will get some smokiness from the bacon cracked black pepper and so then liberal douse of olive oil it just kind of coats those and then what i do is i take a baker's rack like so we place the baker's rack on our grill so we could just easily pull it off and also what this lets the smoke and the heat come through and some of that moisture just drip down and put them flesh side down on our baker's rack so that smoke really gets up in to that tomato you can see i'm not over direct heat the heat's in the back so i'm going to be at about 350 to 450 degrees these are gonna go for seven to ten minutes and we're just gonna get a really nice pop of smoke in there now as the tomatoes are smoking we're gonna start the rest of our sauce we're gonna dice up the bacon remember bacon is a meat that has already been cooked because it's been salted and smoked and cured so what we're doing now is we're cooking it to make it crispy but it's already been cooked so we're not throwing raw meat down on a cutting board so to speak could i use like another meat if i was in the mood for something else yes sausage would be great you could use some of the italian cured meat like pancetta or guanciale which are different versions of bacon but they haven't been smoked those would also work very nicely in there so now we have our onion just put a full dice on this guy we left the roots on because we're gonna dice it if we're gonna slice we take the roots off went about 90 back down the middle like so then we spin it flat end is towards us go 90 percent of the way through again i love watching you cut onions so the flat side is away towards my right hand and i go straight down and those are perfectly diced for our pasta i'm gonna give my bacon a little stir that's just starting to crisp and in this preparation we're gonna go about mid crisp this isn't like bacon with your breakfast you want it to render fat get slightly crispy but it doesn't have to be crunchy crispy because it's going to break down in the sauce anyhow always use fresh garlic when you can remember you could buy whole heads of garlic store them in a cool dark place and they last for a long time garlic is ready to go for the herbs i went back to the garden cut a little bit of fresh oregano a little bit of fresh thyme other herbs rosemary would be good any of these kind of hearty herbs would be really nice in here so that is ready so i can pull it out if you were using dry herbs would you add them at the same time a hardy urban dry herbs you could add at the same time if you were using dry herbs olive you would only use a third as much because they're a little more potent so come over here see how the bacon it's like starting to crisp but it's still got a little bit of fat still in there now we're gonna add the onions and i'm still gonna put a small pinch of salt in with my onions and garlic like a two finger pinch not a big four finger pink and all this caramelization on the bottom of the pan is really gonna add a lot of flavor for us garlic goes in i'm gonna put in some chili flakes if you don't like spice you can omit the chili flakes we then take our herbs tie the string around so we can pull them out easy a little bit of white wine do you have to use white wine did i use red red would be delicious or you could use no if you don't have wine or you don't drink wine you could omit the wine but when i add that wine i take my wooden spoon and i scrape the bottom of my pan to get all that great caramelization that we achieved with the bacon back up into our sauce which is where the flavor is liv why are you looking away the hair it is really smoky all right so that's looking good the wine's gonna reduce by about half look at my tomatoes here this is what we want the skins just start popping right off so you don't have michael's hands i'll show you how to do one maybe be careful so i'm going to put a trivet there we're going to set our wine reduction here and then i'm going to grab my tomatoes so if you don't have my crazy hands you could just pull it off the little extra heat not only adds smoke but it also brings out some sweetness and you pulled some of that water out of the tomato which intensifies the tomato flavor so this is gonna go back on we're gonna let that continue to cook down for about a half an hour all right lizzy look at that tomato sauce smoky goodness and the pasta is cooking it's gonna take about eight minutes i have my tomato sauce here which we cook down it's ready to go i'm just gonna start pulling my pasta out adding it to the sauce pasta is looking delightful i'm gonna finish this pasta so i have a little bit of fresh basil i just pulled the whole leaves a little bit of flat leaf parsley i'm just putting a real rough chop on first thing that we're going to do is the pasta we pulled it out of the water we put it into the sauce al dente so you cook the pasta about two minutes less than the instructions add it to the sauce let it continue to cook in the sauce so it absorbs some of that sauce then i'm gonna take a little bit of pasta water about three four ounces and give that a stir and that just helps the noodles stick to the sauce and it's all coming together in a really happy place now now i take it off the heat i'm gonna put in a nub of butter a couple spritzes of olive oil my flat leaf parsley my basil leaves and then i put some parmesan in now too now if you were put this over direct heat you did it the parmesan will become a stringy mess so you do this all off the heat love it look at that those nice chunks of the fresh tomatoes too saucy this pasta looks perfectly cooked i'm very impressed with that you know you could taste a little bit of the smoke from the grill for thata smoky tomato pasta with a little bit of smoked bacon so i use these vine ripened tomatoes they are beautiful you could use heirlooms cherries romas whichever tomato looks ripest to you at the grocery store would be great does that mean i can't use canned tomatoes liv don't sound nervous i always let you substitute you can use canned tomatoes the beauty of a canned tomatoes it's already super sweet but you're going to want to drain off the liquid before you smoke them you can reserve that liquid then add it to your pan go liberal with the salt so i could do this on an oven indoors right you could do this on an almond indoor you won't get the smokiness but remember we're doing this with bacon so you will get some smokiness from the bacon cracked black pepper and so then liberal douse of olive oil it just kind of coats those and then what i do is i take a baker's rack like so we place the baker's rack on our grill so we could just easily pull it off and also what this lets the smoke and the heat come through and some of that moisture just drip down and put them flesh side down on our baker's rack so that smoke really gets up in to that tomato you can see i'm not over direct heat the heat's in the back so i'm going to be at about 350 to 450 degrees these are gonna go for seven to ten minutes and we're just gonna get a really nice pop of smoke in there now as the tomatoes are smoking we're gonna start the rest of our sauce we're gonna dice up the bacon remember bacon is a meat that has already been cooked because it's been salted and smoked and cured so what we're doing now is we're cooking it to make it crispy but it's already been cooked so we're not throwing raw meat down on a cutting board so to speak could i use like another meat if i was in the mood for something else yes sausage would be great you could use some of the italian cured meat like pancetta or guanciale which are different versions of bacon but they haven't been smoked those would also work very nicely in there so now we have our onion just put a full dice on this guy we left the roots on because we're gonna dice it if we're gonna slice we take the roots off went about 90 back down the middle like so then we spin it flat end is towards us go 90 percent of the way through again i love watching you cut onions so the flat side is away towards my right hand and i go straight down and those are perfectly diced for our pasta i'm gonna give my bacon a little stir that's just starting to crisp and in this preparation we're gonna go about mid crisp this isn't like bacon with your breakfast you want it to render fat get slightly crispy but it doesn't have to be crunchy crispy because it's going to break down in the sauce anyhow always use fresh garlic when you can remember you could buy whole heads of garlic store them in a cool dark place and they last for a long time garlic is ready to go for the herbs i went back to the garden cut a little bit of fresh oregano a little bit of fresh thyme other herbs rosemary would be good any of these kind of hearty herbs would be really nice in here so that is ready so i can pull it out if you were using dry herbs would you add them at the same time a hardy urban dry herbs you could add at the same time if you were using dry herbs olive you would only use a third as much because they're a little more potent so come over here see how the bacon it's like starting to crisp but it's still got a little bit of fat still in there now we're gonna add the onions and i'm still gonna put a small pinch of salt in with my onions and garlic like a two finger pinch not a big four finger pink and all this caramelization on the bottom of the pan is really gonna add a lot of flavor for us garlic goes in i'm gonna put in some chili flakes if you don't like spice you can omit the chili flakes we then take our herbs tie the string around so we can pull them out easy a little bit of white wine do you have to use white wine did i use red red would be delicious or you could use no if you don't have wine or you don't drink wine you could omit the wine but when i add that wine i take my wooden spoon and i scrape the bottom of my pan to get all that great caramelization that we achieved with the bacon back up into our sauce which is where the flavor is liv why are you looking away the hair it is really smoky all right so that's looking good the wine's gonna reduce by about half look at my tomatoes here this is what we want the skins just start popping right off so you don't have michael's hands i'll show you how to do one maybe be careful so i'm going to put a trivet there we're going to set our wine reduction here and then i'm going to grab my tomatoes so if you don't have my crazy hands you could just pull it off the little extra heat not only adds smoke but it also brings out some sweetness and you pulled some of that water out of the tomato which intensifies the tomato flavor so this is gonna go back on we're gonna let that continue to cook down for about a half an hour all right lizzy look at that tomato sauce smoky goodness and the pasta is cooking it's gonna take about eight minutes i have my tomato sauce here which we cook down it's ready to go i'm just gonna start pulling my pasta out adding it to the sauce pasta is looking delightful i'm gonna finish this pasta so i have a little bit of fresh basil i just pulled the whole leaves a little bit of flat leaf parsley i'm just putting a real rough chop on first thing that we're going to do is the pasta we pulled it out of the water we put it into the sauce al dente so you cook the pasta about two minutes less than the instructions add it to the sauce let it continue to cook in the sauce so it absorbs some of that sauce then i'm gonna take a little bit of pasta water about three four ounces and give that a stir and that just helps the noodles stick to the sauce and it's all coming together in a really happy place now now i take it off the heat i'm gonna put in a nub of butter a couple spritzes of olive oil my flat leaf parsley my basil leaves and then i put some parmesan in now too now if you were put this over direct heat you did it the parmesan will become a stringy mess so you do this all off the heat love it look at that those nice chunks of the fresh tomatoes too saucy this pasta looks perfectly cooked i'm very impressed with that you know you could taste a little bit of the smoke from the grill for that\n"