Accompaniments
Utterly simple tomato sauce
Time: 45 mins
Servings: 2
Ingredients:
- 1 x 400g tin of plum tomatoes
- 1 onion, chopped small
- 1 clove garlic, chopped small
- olive oil or butter (the taste will be very different, depending on which you use)
- bay leaf
- salt
Method:
- Sauté the onion in the olive oil for about five minutes, until it’s starting to soften.
- Add the tinned tomatoes, breaking them up with your wooden spoon if they’re whole, with the bay leaf, the garlic and a little salt.
- Bring to a simmer, turn the heat down low and cook, uncovered, for 40 minutes or so, until it’s turned into a thick mush and tastes rich and delicious.
- Serve over pasta with freshly grated parmesan cheese.
I thought I’d taken this recipe from Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, but when I looked in my book I couldn’t find it. I have definitely taken the method from her, though: cooking slowly with the lid off. As she says so sternly, “Never cook a sauce in a covered pan, or it will emerge with a bland, steamed, weakly formulated taste.” She’s right, too.
