The beauty of a tomato sauce is its versatility: it appears in a variety of dishes and never follows a standard recipe. I always make my own tomato sauce, sometimes using canned pelati, sometimes using fresh Roma tomatoes, or sometimes incorporating meat . . . the permutations and combinations are endless. This is one of the many tomato sauce recipes that I’ll post. Though summer has officially ended, the Central Market still sells tomatoes, and as long as they’re in stock, I’ve decided to make a big batch of this savory tomato sauce.
Ingredients:
1) Peel the garlic cloves and slice into think slices. To make this process easier, press down on the garlic with the side of the knife’s blade. This loosens the skin, making it easier to remove. Set the garlic aside.
2) Peel the onions and chop into half. Cut each half lengthwise, into half-moons. Set these aside. (It doesn’t really matter which onions you use. Vadalia onions, walla walla onions and Spanish onions have various degrees of sweetness that they impart to the sauce while red onions are spicier and stronger in the flavor they contribute. I happened to have half a red onion sitting in my fridge, so I tossed it into my sauce.)
3) Wash the tomatoes and remove any stems. Cut the beef and Roma tomatoes into quarters, and remove any hard, white cores. Then cut them into one-inch cubes, the cherry tomatoes into halves, and set aside. As you cut, the tomatoes will release their juices, which you don’t want to lose. When you are finished cutting, pour the puddle of juice that has gathered on your board over the pile of tomatoes.
4) Wash the basil leaves thoroughly and shake off excess water. Gather the leaves together and chop into slices. This chiffonade should not be too thin, so that after the basil strips are still recognizable even after they have cooked and wilted in the sauce.
5) Pour a thin layer of oil in a pot and allow it to heat. When the oil is hot, toss in the garlic slices and sauté until golden, but do not let them brown. Remove the garlic slices from the oil and discard.
6) Add the onion half-moon slices to the hot garlicky oil, and lower the flame to a medium low. Allow the onions to cook for about ten to fifteen minutes, until soft and translucent. Make sure there is enough oil in the pot so that the onions keep moist and do not burn.
7) Push the onions aside to one side of the pot, and add in an additional teaspoon or so of olive in the clear area. When this oil is hot, toss in the chili powder, and allow it to fry for half a minute. Then mix this chili oil with the onions, so that each onion slice is coated with some spice. Allow the onions and the chili powder to cook together for about five minutes.
8) Then toss in the tomatoes along with the basil. Sprinkle salt over the vegetables to speed up the process of the tomatoes releasing their juices.
9) Stir the contents of the pot so that all the ingredients are evenly mixed and distributed. Then cover the pot and allow it to simmer on a medium low flame for an hour.
10) Peek inside the pot intermittently to check on the consistency. Stir around the tomatoes to help break up stubborn chunks, and observe the quantity of liquid. The sauce should be fluid. If the sauce is becoming too dense, add in some water, about ½ cup to 1 cup depending on the state of the sauce.
11) To confirm that the sauce is ready, you should look for the following:
a) Color: the color should have changed from the bright, orangey red that it started out as to a deeper hue of red.
b) Taste: the flavors should have melded nicely, with no one flavor too prominent. Sometimes, long-cooked tomatoes can have a slight bitterness. If this is the case, add in a pinch of sugar to mask that taste. gar to mask that bitterness.
c) Consistency: the consistency should be chunky but loose and fluid.
12) This sauce can be used immediately as the base of any pasta dish, or stored and kept frozen until the next moment of inspiration.
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