Breakfast Bucatini

This is the kind of hearty dish you want on a weekend morning when you wake up starving. I missed dinner the night before and decided to combine the best of both worlds. 

For those unfamiliar with bucatini, it is a luxurious, straw-shaped pasta that sucks sauce into the middle for a super-flavorful bite. The sauce includes a touch of creamy mascarpone cheese which is decadent mixed with with the poached egg yolk.

Luckily this is quicker than it looks, so you won't have to wait long to enjoy it.

Ingredients (serves 2)
4 fresh plum tomatoes
2 large cloves garlic chopped

2 TBS olive oil

Calabrian chili flakes to taste

4 Tbsp mascarpone cheese

1/2 lb dried bucatini

2 eggs soft poached

Salt to taste

2 TBS chopped flat leaf Italian parsley

Tomato Prep

Start by getting your pasta water boiling. Before adding the pasta, score the tomatoes with an 'x' on the bottom and drop into the boiling water for two minutes. Remove the tomatoes to a bowl of cold water. Remove and discard the skins. Halve the tomatoes and scoop the seeds into a fine mesh strainer over a bowl. Press the seeds and save the delicious tomato water for the sauce.

Sauce

Add olive oil, garlic, and Calabrian chili flakes to saucepan on low until aromatic but not brown (1 minute). Add peeled tomato flesh and tomato water to the pan. Salt to taste. Simmer on low for 20 minutes, gently crushing the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and stir in the mascarpone cheese.

Pasta

Cook the bucatini al dente according to package instructions, reserve a cup of pasta water, and drain pasta. Add pasta back to pot, adding sauce and a bit of the pasta water to encourage the pasta to draw the sauce inside. Simmer until the sauce thickens (2 minutes).

Egg & Plating

Poach egg in pan of barely simmering water with one TBS of white vinegar.  Start by prepping a pan of water for poaching the eggs.  Add a splash of white vinegar to the water to ensure that the egg whites shape up nicely. Crack the eggs one by one into a small cup and add to the water with the heat on low.  Cracking the eggs into a cup first also helps keep the whites together when you add them to the pan.You’ll want to have the water almost boiling before you add the eggs in.  

Plate pasta topped with poached egg, chopped parsley, and a few flecks of Calabrian chili flakes.