In traditional Italian cuisine, the simplest pasta dishes are also the tastiest. All you need is a few high-quality ingredients and the right cooking technique to make their texture, aroma, and flavor stand out. This is exactly what we’re going to be doing here.

You need six ingredients to make this recipe: ½ pack of RUMMO ORGANIC PENNE RIGATE pasta, a jar of RUMMO SUGO ALL'ARRABBIATA, 2-3 garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons of SAN REMO X/VIRGIN OLIVE OIL, a pinch of SAN REMO FINE SEA SALT, and a piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

As with most simple pasta dishes, the technique is to boil the penne in a pot of generously-salted boiling water while you’re simmering the tomato sauce in your frying pan.

Fire up two burners on your stove, bringing a pot of water to a boil over high heat on one, and preheating your frying pan over medium heat on the other.

Italian pasta chefs like to say that your pasta water should taste like the sea. As you’re bringing the water in your pot to a boil, salt it with a big pinch of sea salt. The sea salt will dissolve in the water, seasoning the pasta as it rehydrates and cooks.

Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t matter if you salt the water before or after you bring it to a boil. Though it’s true that salt increases the boiling point of water, the amount by which this happens in your kitchen is so insignificant that it won’t make any noticeable difference.

The thing that’s actually important when it comes to boiling pasta is to never forget to salt the water. You can’t save pasta that came out bland, even if you made the most savory sauce or grated the saltiest cheese you could possibly find on top of it.

It will take you longer to bring the water in your pasta pot to a boil (10-15 minutes) than it will to preheat your frying pan (2-3 minutes). This buys you enough time for preparing the tomato sauce. Peel and mince 2-3 cloves of garlic. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, wait 10-15 seconds for it to get up to heat, and sauté the garlic in it.

Garlic burns easily and, when it does, it develops a bitter and unpleasant taste. When it releases its perfume in the air of your kitchen—which shouldn’t take more than 30-45 seconds—you know that it’s time to add the rest of the ingredients to your frying pan.

Add the RUMMO SUGO ALL'ARRABBIATA to the frying pan, season them with a pinch of sea salt and let your sauce-in-the-making simmer, stirring often.

By now, the water in your pot is most probably up to a boil.

Add the penne to the pasta pot when the water has reached a rolling boil. A “rolling boil,” also known as a “full boil,” happens when water is heated to its boiling point of 212°F (100°C). Big bubbles will start to form, move, and burst aggressively on the surface.

Cook the penne to almost al dente. Do this by boiling them for 2-3 minutes less than the cooking time in the instructions on the package. Drain them from the water, transfer them to your frying pan, then finish cooking them with the sauce for about 60-90 seconds.

Plate the pasta, grate a small portion of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and serve.