In a wide low skillet, on high heat, scald two cups of half-and-half cream. You cannot turn your back on the skillet, even for a second. The cream needs to rise to the top. Lift the skillet quickly as cream approaches the top of pan so that it does not over boil, because it makes a very big nasty mess on your stovetop if that happens.
Turn down the heat so that the cream continues to cook but not burn. The cream will thicken considerably. Stir it a few times, wiping down the edges of the pan with your wooden spoon or a rubber spatula.
Salt and add fresh ground pepper, a pinch of dry thyme and a pinch of garlic salt.
Stir in a third to a half cup of your favourite two cheeses, grated. I prefer Romano and Parmesan mixed for this recipe. You can use dried ready-grated cheese.
In a tall but narrow pot or bowl, cover one large fresh red tomato with boiling water. Let it sit briefly, then dunk the tomato into a pot of ice water. The skin will slip right off. Remove seeds, core and chop coarsely. Add to the cream mixture in the skillet. Add minced fresh green basil leaves (about a quarter cup). I don’t like purple grape colour basil in this recipe.
Stir in egg noodle pasta that has been cooked, al dente, in boiling salted water, drained and tossed with a little real butter (this recipe really does need that butter) and a drop of your favourite olive oil (stops pasta from sticking together). Serve.
Prep time 20 minutes.
This sauce is even more fabulous the second day. Reheat gently with fresh cooked pasta in the sauce.
The sauce can be made a day ahead, reheated and served over fresh cooked very hot pasta.
Other suggestions:
Serve over rotini pasta. This curled pasta keeps the sauce in the grooves of the pasta nicely. Before serving, try adding fresh cooked shrimp and/or large whole sea scallops that are just barely cooked (about three minutes each side, in real butter of course, with a pinch of thyme).
Fresh poached lobster is fabulous with this sauce. Add sliced mushrooms that have been cooked: once over easy in sizzling real butter. You could mince a tablespoon of onion and add it if you like. Another alternative: fry three slices of bacon until quite crispy. Break bacon into quarter-inch pieces so you can see them in the mix. Add just before serving.
One more choice:
Poach fresh lobster pieces in an abundance of real butter (save the leftover butter to cook shrimp or scallops in); add a little tiny bit of dry thyme and salt, or use large pieces of tinned, frozen lobster tossed in a bit of sizzling butter just to warm; add lobster to the sauce right at the end, just before serving. You don’t want to continue cooking the lobster.
Alternate serving instead of with pasta: serve in a rolled freshly made thin crepe. Place the filled crepe in a hot, buttered, but not burning hot skillet and flambé with your favourite brandy or bitters. Decorate each of the plates with a sprig of fresh, brilliant green basil, just plucked from the pot.
For an extra decorative serving idea, add a dollop of whipped cream (add just a little sugar and a tiny drizzle of vanilla, the way you would for a dessert cream) into which you have stirred a tablespoon of finely minced (fresh only) basil leaves. Stick a basil leaf into the dollop so people will know what is in it. Whipped cream will turn a little green and people will wonder what is in it, but with the basil trimming, they might guess.
These uses of the rose sauce are so YUM!
A Mommessin Beaujolais or a Chianti is nice with this dish.
The working title for Carolyne’s Gourmet Recipes cookbook is From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen: A Canadian Contessa Cooks. This kitchen-friendly doyenne has been honoured and referred to as the grande dame of executive real estate in her market area during her 35-year career. She taught gourmet cooking in the mid-70s and wrote a weekly newspaper cooking column, long before gourmet was popular as it is today. Her ebook, Gourmet Cooking – at Home with Carolyne is available here for $5.99 US. Email Carolyne. Scroll down to the comments at each recipe column. Carolyne often adds complimentary “From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen” additional recipes in the Recipes for Realtors Comments section at REM.
