Slow roasted peach and tomato penne with feta and olives

Frank Loesser knew what he was talking about; a slow boat to China can be a fine thing, especially when you’re on route to a good meal. Take meat, now, I’m no flesh eater but that’s one thing that always benefits from the go slow, low, more often that not. Then there’s curry, in order for this to be really good it’s best left alone, on the hob and only a whisper of a flame, if anything at all, and forgot about, while all the flavours get together and reach some unknown peak. There’s also the tomato. For the tomato to reach rich, sweet depths it needs some gentle nurturing under a delicate temperature for many hours.

With this in mind I’d been staring at some peaches, intermittently, for three days now. They were rapidly having to vie for space amongst the ever accumulating tomatoes, and it seemed like there had to be an unlikely pairing between the two in a savoury dish of some sorts. It was cold so a summer salad was out of the question. I was in need of something substantial and hearty.

It had to be peach and tomato pasta, didn't it? The sweetness contrasted by a salty feta and olives. Making it up as I went along, I started by finely slicing the tomatoes and peaches and dosing them in oil and a little Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar, with basil and garlic on the tomatoes. They were then slow roasted in the oven at 90 degrees C, for a good while, which I hoped would take any tart edge off the peaches and combine a dense sweet flavour within both.

I then set about boiling some large Penne pasta and roughly chopping black olives, pine nuts and a tomato with some more basil and heated this through in some olive oil. They are all tossed together in the end with the roasted fruit and feta crumbled over the top. It was a hit. All hail the peach venture into the savoury world. This one really works.

Ingredients:
3 ripe peaches
4 organic medium sized red tomatoes
Small handful fresh basil leaves
2 tbsps red wine vinegar (try cabernet sauvignon vinegar)
2 - 4 tbsp of good quality olive oil
Sea Salt and black pepper
3 garlic cloves
1 shallot
50g pine nuts
60g of pitted black olives
50g feta cheese
250g good quality dried Penne (or similar pasta)
Fresh Parmesan

Pre-heat the oven to 90 degrees C.

Thinly slice each peach with a sharp knife around the stone. You should have about 11 slices per peach. Do the same with three of the tomatoes and lay them out on a large baking tray – peaches on one side tomatoes on the other.

Thinly slice the garlic and put about half over just the tomatoes, then drizzle the vinegar and half the oil over everything with a pinch of ground sea salt and black pepper. Roast in the oven for about 1 – 1.30 hours. I know this may seem like a long time but put them in early and forget about them for a while.

About 20 minutes before they are ready boil a large pan of salted water on the hob for the pasta.

Heat 2 tbsps of olive oil in a high sided frying pan and add the shallot for a minute then the remainder of the garlic and cook for two minutes more stirring so they don’t catch.

In a small pan dry fry the pine nut for a couple of minutes.

Roughly chop the olives and the remaining tomatoes and add them to the shallots and garlic. Cook for a minute then tip in the toasted pine nuts.

Drain the pasta once it is cooked and reserve about 100ml of cooking water. Stir in the drained pasta to the shallot, garlic, olives, and tomato with a little more olive oil and seasoning. Stir in the cooking water to loosen up the mixture in the pan.

Give it a few gentle stirs to combine and scrape in all the roasted mixture from the tray in the oven, (anything that has broken down just scrape it all in there).

Remove from the heat and crumble the feta over the pasta. Divide onto plates (should serve 2-4) and grate over plenty of Parmesan over the top with a potato peeler along with a few more grinds of salt and pepper.