Mar 19, 2025 4 min read Food Corner

Food | Bruno's Favourite One Pot Pasta

Every household has their food staples that are cooked on a weekly basis. It's part of the "go to" recipes, that are easy to make on work evenings, for meal prep, that give comfort, that remind of food we ate during childhood...

One of those staples for us at The von Haffs is One Pot Pasta, that Bruno has been mastering for the past decade and one of the only vegetarian dishes he does with gusto. When he doesn't add a shrimp or some minced meat...

His inspiration, in his own words...

"Well… for me, cooking is an art, a passion, and a calling that I was born with. I’ve always been curious and attentive to what was being cooked at home—traditional Portuguese dishes, from Sunday roasts (where I would spend hours staring through the oven glass) to the wonderful caldeiradas (stews), where I would help my mother slice onions, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and the beautiful fresh fish bought at a market in the Algarve. Layering everything up in the pot, putting it on the stove, and that was it! Whenever I could, I got my hands in the dough—literally—kneading bread that would go into the wood-fired oven. Then, we would tear it open and eat it warm with olive oil, garlic, and salt (the classic Tiborna!).

At the time, I also used to watch Chef Silva or Filipa Vacondeus (the portuguese Martha Stewart of that era), but those shows didn’t interest me much… It was only later, with the arrival of international cooking shows—like Jamie Oliver’s, with his vibrant dishes, and the relentless Gordon Ramsay, with his technique-driven cuisine—that I started experimenting with new recipes. But that curiosity to travel, discover new cultures and flavors, in the style of Anthony Bourdain, made me realize that cooking is endlessly wonderful, and recreating those experiences became one of my favorite hobbies."

With such a cooking-related legacy under his belt, he’ll be sharing his One Pot Pasta recipe, that can change in ingredients every week but the basis is the same: the pasta can change but it's always pasta. The cheese can change but there is always cheese. The vegetables can change seasonally or wherever we are in the world but there are always several and the more colourful the better.

Ingredients

200g pasta (regular or whole wheat, can be spaghetti, taggliatelle, orzo, orecchetti...)
200g cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 dozen black olives, pitted and chopped
2 shallots, sliced into half-moons (or 1 small onion)
1 small dollop of tomato paste
100g Parmesan cheese—grated and set aside
A drizzle of olive oil
A pinch of salt
A pinch of freshly ground black pepper
¼ fresh chili, sliced (or ½ teaspoon chili flakes)
1 small bunch of basil—chopped and set aside

The magic of this recipe is throwing everything into the pot—it needs to be a wide pot (we prefer cast iron or stainless steel pots for this recipe) so that the pasta can lay flat. In less than 15 minutes, you will be done, we promise.

To make sure the sauce turns out delicious, pay attention to these details:
Start by boiling water in a kettle or a separate pot, prepare the ingredients, and place everything (save half the grated cheese) in the cooking pot.

Turn on the stove to medium heat, stir the ingredients as soon as the olive oil heats up, and let the flavours release for about a minute (just enough so the pasta doesn’t burn).

Add water until it reaches the level of the ingredients, cover, and let it cook. After 8 minutes, uncover the pot and let some of the water evaporate for 2 minutes (but don’t let it all evaporate, or the pasta will be dry and unappetizing).

Remove the pot from the heat, add the second half of the Parmesan cheese, and mix everything together. Serve with the freshly cut basil leaves, the remaining cheese, and an extra drizzle of olive oil. This is when you can use that good kind you bought during that trip to Italy, you know?

As the years go by, we’ve made several variations of this recipe—with spinach, asparagus, feta and different kinds of olives like Kalamata…

Let your imagination run wild!