I’ve been working on the art of making good sauces; self teaching, experimenting and exploring for a while now. And with my husband thinking he’s Italian( he wishes) and being obsessed with this cuisine, I’ve been forced to experiment with my Italian quite a bit. I’ve made decent homemade pizzas, different pastas and I think I have developed a full proof meatballs recipe. Through all of this I’ve come up with a few short cuts and better ways to get that sought after flavour.
The Italian cuisine involves a lot of sauces, with the common ones being marinara, carbonara, bolognaise, pesto, neapolitan and with tomato sauce the most famous one. In a lot of Italian homes they even call it ‘Sunday gravy’.
These usually take a long time to cook and to develop deep and rich flavours. Some recipes take up to 3 hours! That’s a lot of time to spend on just the sauce, flavourful or not. Who has such time?
But I would like to share with you my quick, flavourful but simple Italian tomato sauce. It goes well with almost everything Italian, from pizza, meatball, bolognaise, or even for adding flavour and some meatiness onto just a plain pasta.
What do you need? Serves 4
- 3 cloves of garlic
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1 can of peeled tomatoes
-
freshly parsley
-
dried oregano
-
cayenne pepper
-
salt
-
black pepper
Equipment: Food processor or blender, jug or tall container and a microwave.
What to do?
In a food processor mix the roughly chopped garlic, canned peeled tomato, 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp of oregano, 1/2 tsp of ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp of salt and a handful of fresh parsley.
Blend well, then pop into a microwave for 60 seconds. And viola!
It really tastes fresh and has a very good depth of flavour thanks to the garlic and cayenne.
It really does not get any simpler than this. You can refrigerate the sauce for a maximum of 2 weeks.
Now your challenge is to try it and you can add more or different herbs/ spices if you wish to do so, just remember the basics that makes it Italian. Herbs such as mint leaves, thyme, basil go very well with this sauce.
Bon Appetito!
