Sometimes simple is best! And with good ingredients, simple allows the true flavors to shine through.
Trying to come up with a quick dinner the other evening, while hungry for pasta, I found this recipe for Tomato Sauce in The Tuscan Sun cookbook, a favorite of mine for Italian dishes.
With few ingredients and a super short cooking time ( the pasta cooks in the time it takes for the sauce to cook), it exceeded my expectations! It was absolutely delicious, and I will be making it again and again.
Key to the recipe is using good quality San Marzano canned tomatoes if ripe fresh ones are not accessible. It was so good I may just continue to use the canned Marzanos.
Fresh basil is the other key ingredient, and I had a basil plant recently purchased at Trader Joes sitting on my counter as luck would have it.
Here’s how the author Frances Mayes delightfully describes this oh so simple dish…
Tomato Sauce
Pomarola (tomato sauce)- classic and omnipresent. For true fast food: ¼ cup of pomarola per person, stirred into pasta, a wave over the plate with Parmigiano, a few torn basil leaves, and here it is –eccolo! This is the food for which homesick Italian travelers yearn. Some even travel with pelati, cans of Italian tomatoes, so they can whip up a meal redolent of home. You can add garlic, thyme, oregano, or pepper flakes if you like, but this recipe is for plain and authentic pomarola. Use fresh, boxed, or canned tomatoes (juice included), peeled or not, as you prefer. Canned and boxed tomatoes are generally peeled. I usually don’t peel fresh tomatoes. For sauces, the San Marzano variety is the Italian choice. This sauce will keep in the fridge for about a week. Makes 3 cups
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, minced
8 tomatoes or 1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, coarsely chopped
8 to 10 basil leaves, torn
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon pepper
In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the onion.
Saute for about 5 minutes, until golden and soft.
Add the tomatoes, basil, salt, and pepper.
Bring the sauce to a boil, then immediately lower the heat to a brisk simmer and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes, or until glossy and thickened.
Buon Appetito!