I made tomato sauce and so can you
Take a few cans of tomatoes. Use fancy ones, use italian ones, use fancy italian ones, or use whatever is cheap at the supermarket. Italian Jesus will not smite you for using inferior tomatoes, at least not on a Sunday. I like chunky crushed, but if you really want to you can use whole tomatoes and crush them yourself. Doesn’t that sound fun, smooshing tomatoes and getting juice all over yourself? Anyway, tip tip tip them into your pan. I used two cans and I put them in my new sauté pan. Add a whole heap of unsalted butter. Say 100 grams, but you could add more. Cut an onions in half and place cut side down into the tomato. I had a half a red onion in the fridge so I added that. That’s how I cook. With passion and because of my disabled son. Oh wait, I’m not Adele from Masterchef.
Now you wait. Up to an hour, or even over. Simmer the tomatoes, stirring now and again. Here’s a video on how to stir. For 99c you can buy three stirring implements from Ikea. They’re called Mixa—isn’t that cute? There should be a few bubbles, in the sauce, but that’s about it. I resisted the temptation to add salt or pepper at any stage in making the sauce. I suppose my canned tomatoes must have had some salt in them.
After an hour I add two basil stalks. I’ve been using basil like this a lot lately. Just ripping off a stalk with a whole bunch of leaves on it and putting it in whatever I’m cooking. My basil plant is not coping with the cooler weather and is only growing tiny leaves and lots of flowers, which I rip off angrily. It used to be so loyal and fecund. I also added a smooshed clove of garlic and a whole chilli. I removed the chilli shortly thereafter because it was ruining the delicious mellowness of the rest of the sauce. I let that cook for a little while more.
I cooked some leftover frozen green beans until they were floppy and tossed them in the sauce. I then cooked pasta in salty water. Like two tablespoons salty. You’ll never go back. Remove the onion and garlic and basil and whatever else you put into the sauce.
Drained the pasta, whomped it into the pan and mixed it all up. Only spag bol gets the sauce on top of the pasta. All other pastas are mixed thoroughly in the sauce before serving. Served it in our new fancy deep bowls—a plate bowl hybrid—with a heavy snowfall of freshly ground black people.
It was fantastic. Make it.
Inspired by this.
