John’s Easy and Delicious Tomato Sauce

This recipe is a basic tomato sauce that can be modified to create a range of different sauces for different occasions. However, it’s ideal in its own right for recipes such as pizza and lasagna.

Although the sauce is simple to make, it’s really thick and tasty as it involves reducing the tomatoes slowly to really bring out the flavour.

A modified version that can hold its own as a pasta sauce is included here too.

Don’t rush it, the thicker the sauce gets, the tastier it will be. You should be able to pile it up so that you can see the bottom of the pan.

 

Simple version

Ingredients:

• 400g tinned tomatoes
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Sea Salt
• Olive oil
• 1 bay leaf (optional)

Instructions:

Roughly chop the garlic into large chunks. Pour enough olive oil into a frying pan to half cover the bottom. Without pre-heating the frying pan, place the garlic chunks into the oil and switch on the frying pan on medium heat. Tilt the frying pan over the heat so that the garlic and oil form a pool in which the garlic is completely covered. Fry the garlic in the oil, stirring continuously, for 2 minutes. It’s important not to let the garlic brown, to the extent that I’d start again if it got brown. Keeping the garlic fully immersed in oil prevents it browning.

Remove from the heat and immediately add the tomatoes, sea salt and bay (if using). Make sure that you coat the garlic well in the tomatoes so that it doesn’t accidentally brown when you put it back on the heat. 

Allow the tomatoes to reduce over the next ten minutes, stirring regularly. Remove the bay leaf and use as required!

Suga (Pasta sauce)

The bare bones of this recipe was given to me by a good friend who had gotten it from the Italian girlfriend of another friend of his. It has since been ruthlessly experimented upon and tweaked and I have several variations that I use for different occasions, however, this version is the perfect option for serving alone with pasta.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 2 x 400g tinned tomatoes
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Juice of half a lemon (must be fresh – if unavailable then a tbsp of balsamic vinegar is a better alternative than bottled lemon juice)
• 1 tbsp of fresh basil leaves, shredded by hand, or 1 tsp of dried basil
• A pinch of oregano
• A pinch of chilli powder
• Black pepper
• Sea Salt
• Extra Virgin Olive oil

Instructions:

Roughly chop the garlic into large chunks. Pour enough olive oil into a frying pan to half cover the bottom. Without pre-heating the frying pan, place the garlic chunks into the oil and switch on the frying pan on medium heat.

Tilt the frying pan over the heat so that the garlic and oil form a pool in which the garlic is completely covered. Fry the garlic in the oil, stirring continuously, for 2 minutes.

It’s important not to let the garlic brown, to the extent that I’d start again if it got brown. Keeping the garlic fully immersed in oil prevents it browning.

Remove from the heat and immediately add the tomatoes, chilli powder, lemon juice, sea salt and bay. Make sure that you coat the garlic well in the tomatoes so that it doesn’t accidentally brown when you put it back on the heat.

Allow the tomatoes to reduce over the next 15 minutes, stirring regularly, until the bottom of the frying pan is constantly visible and the sauce is thick and rich.

Add the black pepper and basil and allow to cook another minute. Add a splash of fresh olive oil and a little more black pepper, remove the bay leaf, stir in your pasta and serve!