Ciao a tutti!
Today we wanted to give a couple of ideas on making the quickest and easiest tomato sauce that you can use for practically any dish. You can use it on pasta, rice, sandwiches or just eat as-is. We make ours almost chunky and fresh. There are really 2 versions to tomato sauce. The longer you cook it, the more sauce-like it will become so if you are going for the “real” sauce it will take more cooking time and will have to be strained.
In Italy, most sauces are made at home from scratch. Supermarkets carry canned and jarred sauces, but the selection will be small-medium. Since tomatoes are relatively inexpensive in Italy, it makes more sense to make it fresh.
Ingredients:
Tomatoes
Garlic (optional)
Onion (optional)
Salt
Olive Oil
Basil (optional)
First we just take some Roma tomatoes (as they are called in the USA). You can check under the type San Marzano, which is what they are called in Italy. If you have a tomato expert in front of you, you may be able to ask for “Pomodoro tipo Roma” (Roma tomatoes). Roma is the Italian word for Rome, meaning that in theory they should come from Rome. However, in a supermarket it’s enough you ask for “pomodoro”, the Italian word for tomato and then you can pick and choose. These tomatoes are traditional “sauce making” tomatoes and work the best.
If adding garlic and onion this can be sautéed a bit first in a bit of olive oil, before adding the tomatoes. Add tomatoes and put the cover on. Let it sit on low heat until you have the consistency you want. The fresher you have them, the less liquid they will loose. The longer you stew them, the more liquid the tomatoes give off. Don’t worry because this liquid will eventually evaporate and it will become thicker, but it will not get to a sauce.
Depending on the consistency you want, your sauce will take anywhere from 5-35 minutes.
You will still have some tomato chunks and to get that sauce consistency, simply pass it through a strainer. The sauce can be strained into a bowl and the chunks stay in the strainer! You will need a lot of tomatoes for the real sauce effect.
Buon Appetito!
by 