Roasted cherry tomato pasta lets the oven make the sauce: 600 g of whole cherry tomatoes roast at 200 °C for 30 minutes with a whole garlic head (bottom cut off), thyme and a generous pour of olive oil, then the roasted garlic squeezes out as a sweet paste and hot spaghetti stirs straight into the blistered tomatoes. Sweet, garlicky, with a rich jammy finish. Serves 3.
Tortilla de patatas turns 2 eggs and 2 potatoes into a golden, layered dinner that slices like a cake: 3 mm potato rounds are soaked, dried and slow-fried with onion and garlic until completely soft, folded off the heat into paprika-seasoned eggs (one egg per potato — that ratio is the whole point), then set in a small pan — 10 minutes covered, one committed flip, 5 more minutes. Serves 2.
Black garlic pasta builds a sauce from pantry basics: warm olive oil with chili flakes and sliced fresh garlic, add a splash of starchy pasta water and let it bubble two minutes until the oil turns into a sauce, then toss the spaghetti and stir a good handful of chopped black garlic through at the very end. Sweet up front, deep umami underneath — and it clings to every strand. Serves 2.