Follow these instructions scrupulously. The CC means it. You'll get fabulous sauce, won't have to do much work, and you'll impress people and be (moderately) lazy at the same time.
Not as easy as opening a jar but a crapload better.
Just for the record, the CC once made this for someone who worked for Thomas Keller. Mr. Snooty McSnootington sniffed at the CC's attempt at conversation until after the first bite. After that the CC could do no wrong.
Yeah, it's that good. Yeah, it's that basic that every mamma in Italy once made it. Yeah, the CC is gloating.
Whyever not?
Ingredients
12 ripe tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato paste (in winter)
1 small red onion (diced)
3 cloves garlic (smashed)
salt
freshly ground pepper
freshly shaved nutmeg (yeah, you heard that right!)
Recipe
First you need to dunk the tomatoes in boiling water for roughly 7 minutes, and pass them through a food mill. You can do this while you mix yourself a drink.
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Fry the onions and garlic at a medium low heat.Did you listen to the instructions?
Let's try that again. Medium low heat. Do not turn it up. The CC knows you want to. Resist.
This is not about you, and your pathetic harried hurried life. This is for the betterment of your soul (and along the way, better food which is part of it.)Thank you! Onward with the sauce.
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Grind the salt and pepper (not shown), and toss in the tomato paste. Fry languidly..jpg)
Add in the tomatoes passed through the food mill. Turn the heat DOWN to a low. Yeah, you heard the CC. Turn it down.Do not attempt to hurry this step.
Yes, it will take a while for the (relatively cold) tomato pulp to heat up. No, you shouldn't turn the heat up. Yes, the CC will kick your ass if you do.
Also, do not cover the pot. This is a divorceable offence in Sicily, a law the CC fully and firmly supports. Thank heavens for certain standards.
Go drink your drink now.
Check the sauce every 20 minutes. Skim, baby, skim. Get those fatty impurities out.
Languidly enjoy that drink.
The sauce will make itself in about an hour. This is also the point where the sauce will start giving off luscious smells.
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Note the reduction, and the darkening of color. Turn the heat off, and shave the nutmeg over it. The sauce will be sweet-sour, and the nutmeg acts as a slightly bitter flavoring agent that balances the flavors. It will take on a subtle complexity beyond being just sweet and tart. The lovely fragrance and the (moderate) hallucinatory dreams are part of the betterment of your soul. Very traditionally Italian too.
4 comments:
Where I'm from we use what you described sans nutmeg as the standard tomato sauce that goes over pasta. However there is a variation of it, which substitutes cinnamon for your nutmeg. That's called "tomato sauce from Smyrna" (you know, the city in Asia Minor) and is used on top of meats. The most common dish is meatballs "Smyrneika", for which you fry or grill the meatballs (Greek meatballs are unbeatable) and then simmer them in the Smyrna-style sauce.
Where the CC comes from, they serve tomato sauce in the "mess" while "doing the needful" with their "funda" brothers and sisters, working on problem sets.
Mr. Snooty McSnootington? Hahahahahahhahahahahaha.
-emily
After many years of considering to make the sauce, we finally spent our entire Sunday making it. 26lbs of heirloom tomatoes --> 8 jars of sauce @ ~$3.50/jar. It took us a whopping 6 hours from start to finish and we used pretty much every cooking pot we own. 4 jars were pasta sauce style with herbs; other 4 are plain (just onions and garlic). We're all set for crapy tomato season... and as a friend put it, our endeavor today reminded her of things people do on "Little House on the Prairie" prepping for winter.
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