Dan's Tomato Sauce
I hope we’re all well and dealing as best we can with the current situation. Whatever it is that you’re using to fill your days, one thing I’m sure you'll all have found time to do during the lockdown is cook!
Now this might sound like a strange way to start, but personally I’m not a big fan of recipes. I just find that a rigid ‘by-the-book’ recipe can be rather limiting. Also, it has never and will never take 5-6 minutes to sweat onions until soft and translucent. It just ain’t happening. In the recipe to follow we’re going to cook some onions until you get bored of cooking onions.
Often, when someone talks to me about what they’re cooking for dinner, I find that they don’t want to attempt a certain dish because they don’t have the exact right ingredients, but the fact is, there’s usually an alternative to any ingredient sitting in the back of the cupboard.
I never really learnt how to cook until I was cooking. I learnt through trial and error: In the words of Raymond Blanc, “Taste taste and taste again,” And even though recipes can start you off as a guide, I’d always encourage you to personalise the exact way you make it. Apart from anything else, it makes it more fun, which is, after all, what it’s all about. I should just note (because I can sense the bakers at Marmadukes screaming at the page saying “you can't just wing a pastry recipe”, and they’re right) that there are definitely circumstances where details have to be followed and weights have to be correct. But you won't be getting much of that from me today. So think of this less as a recipe, and more of a loose guide.
A Basic Tomato Sauce. This sauce is kind of your mother sauce. It's primarily used with pasta, but can be customised at your discretion to make whatever other sauce you want – a pizza topping, the sauce for a lasagne, chilli, soups, the list continues...
Ingredients
Per tin of Plum Tomatoes:
2 onions
4 cloves of garlic
Some Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the best you can afford)
Salt to taste
Pepper if you fancy it
Sugar, to taste
Vinegar (balsamic, red wine, white wine, cider, to be honest at a stretch, even malt)
You’ll also need a blender or food processor, but if you don't have one, you'll just want to chop everything a little bit smaller.
Method
Start by peeling your onions and chopping them however you want. The key is to get a lot of surface area, so I tend to cut them in half before slicing.
Once chopped, get a suitable sized saucepan on a lowish heat, and throw in about 100ml of olive oil.
Add your onions and a big pinch of salt. Now on a low heat, sweat. For a long time. I'd say around 30 minutes. Basically, the longer you do it, the more water will evaporate out of the onions and the more concentrated the sugars will become. In short, longer equals sweeter, but keep an eye on them so that they don’t burn.
Whilst the onions are going, get the garlic chopped, again large surface area. If you've got a grater with a small fine blade then that's ideal. When the onions are super soft, chuck in the garlic and cook low for another 10/15 mins.
Smell it.
At this point if you've got a bit of old red wine knocking about then there’s no harm in throwing it in. 1/2 a glass would be fine. Just make sure to reduce it by half before continuing.
Now add your plum tomatoes. Plum have been through less processes than their more popular cousins Chopped, meaning that in theory they should taste more like they did when they were picked from the plant all that time ago in Italy. But if you’re running low, chopped tomatoes will do just fine.
Add a splash of vinegar, a pinch of sugar, and cook on low.
Now this is where the recipe becomes yours. You can take this sauce any way you want now. The longer you cook it the more water will evaporate and more concentrated it will become. So as Raymond says “TASTE”. It’s about adding a bit at a time and tasting each time you add to get the balance you're happy with. And remember you can always add - you can’t take away.
I would probably cook it on low for another 15/20 minutes or so. Then if you're using a blender, use it. If you have the patience you can strain it through a fine sieve after to give it a smoother texture. If you're not using a blender I have a feeling a potato masher used with caution could get you to a similar position.
At this stage, to my Italian friend’s horror, I’d whisk in a knob of butter. And you're done!
There’s a long list of things you could add at this point. Anchovies and olives to create a bit of a puttanesca type dish. Mascarpone cheese gives it a creamy and richer finish. If you can get your hands on any fresh herbs then blending basil or oregano through it at the end really helps it out. But there’s nothing wrong with just having this as is. Taste it one last time, and when on the plate, grate as much parmesan over it as you dare.
