(recipe below is for a 120g pasta serving – adjust up or down accordingly)

Place 7 red cherry tomatoes (halved), cut side down, in a small oven dish. Drizzle generously with olive oil (to make a shallow pool of oil) and sprinkle with salt, a bit of sugar, and dried oregano. Place in a 150°C oven for around 40 minutes until lightly charred. Turn off the oven to keep warm while making the rest of the sauce.

Place 200g yellow cherry tomatoes (halved) in a saucepan, alongside a good drizzle of olive oil. Stir fry for a few minutes on medium-high heat to soften. Once the skins start to separate from the tomatoes (when lightly pressed with a spatula), transfer to a bowl and purée with an immersion blender. Pass through a mill to remove the skins and seeds.

Grate or finely chop 1 large garlic clove and place it in a saucepan along with a little olive oil, set to a medium-low heat. Once the garlic has become fragrant, but hasn’t changed in colour, add the yellow tomato purée to the pan, season with salt and pepper and simmer for about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat while you cook the pasta. Makes about 130ml of sauce.

Cook 120g of fusilli pasta according to the packet instructions. Once al dente, drain and add to the yellow tomato sauce, set to a low heat, and stir to combine. Gently fold in the confit tomatoes. Stir in some of the olive oil from the oven dish.

Serve with a grinding of pepper and a garnish of basil leaves.

Notes on preparation: the key is not to cook the sauce for too long or at too high a temperature, salt is important to the sauce, and a bit of sugar really makes a difference for the confit tomatoes to bring out their natural sweetness.

(the tomatoes before going into the oven)