A fabulous “new” (to me) Tomato Sauce!
Honestly, I do not know how I have been a keen cook for this many years and not have heard of this sauce. It is supposedly Marcella Hazan’s recipe, in a book of family favourites by her son Giuliano. It has THREE ingredients (well, and salt). That’s it.
This recipe is great for when you need something delicious and can’t get to the store! Tomatoes, butter, onions and pasta…most people have those ingredients kicking around in their kitchen pantries and fridges.
The original recipe called for peeled tomatoes to be mashed up and cooked with the butter, but I used some nice Roma tomatoes, which I sliced skin-on, bagged and popped in the freezer last summer.
I also saw that some people had used canned tomatoes, with the suggestion to be careful with the salt. The following is what I produced today, and likely will stick with in the future:
3-4 cups of chopped Roma tomatoes
1/3 cup butter
1 cooking onion, halved
Sea salt to taste (I salted at end of cooking time)
Place all ingredients in a large pot, so you have a bigger surface to evaporate the sauce. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce heat to very low, and simmer gently, stirring every ten minutes or so, until you have cooked away most of the tomato liquid and the butter is basically coating the top of the tomato pulp. This will take about an hour, more or less.
The original recipe states to remove the onion (you could, and use it elsewhere or discard)…I removed one half and then, with my trusty immersion blender, wizzed the remaining half into the sauce until it was smooth, and the tomato skins were blended in. I seasoned with a good pinch of sea salt and tasted it. Wow, wow, wow. Simple and fresh-tasting, the butter lends a rich smoothness, taking out the sharpness of the tomatoes.
You could top this with some nice freshly grated Parmesan when you serve it over pasta, but really, I don’t think it needs it.
Toad's Kitchen 