New Italian Recipes Presents:
Homemade Italian Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3-5 cloves garlic, crushed with flat of knife and sliced thinly
1/2 to 1 cup diced, fresh basil. (It's your call. We usually use close to a cup)
1/2 cup red wine. (Good enough quality to drink)
1 T turbinado (raw) sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 28 oz. can crushed or diced tomatoes.
1 t lemon juice (optional)
3 T brandy (optional)
If you have good fresh tomatoes, blanch them in boiling water
until the skins are loose and wrinkled. Cool in cold water and remove skins
before dicing. If you squeeze through strainer with mesh small enough to catch
the seeds, the removal of the seeds will make the sauce a little less bitter. We
usually don't remove the seeds. We can't tell that it makes enough difference to
go to the trouble)
Preparation:
Sauté onions in olive oil over low heat, covered, for 10-12 minutes.
Add garlic and basil, re-cover, for another 5 minutes or so.
Uncover and add wine. Reduce by about half.
Add tomatoes and S & P and simmer for 15 minutes. You can reduce the sauce further and intensfiy the flavor. We like to add the brandy and lemon juice about 3-4 minutes before finishing.
If you want to turn this sauce into Neapolitan Sauce, add 10-12 sliced ripe olives, and 1 1/2 T capers just before finishing.
Fresh Italian Parsley can be added at the end if you like it.
For a nice twist, add 3-5 crushed and chopped anchovies. You talk about kicking something up a notch! Especially good in fish stew (Cioppino). Yum!!!