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1. Life / Food & Drink / Recipes
2. The Universe / The Earth / Europe / Italy

The Perfect Italian-style Tomato Sauce

This sauce is good with pasta, stuffed squash, or with grilled meat.

Ingredients

Serves 2-4, depending on what you serve with it.

  • Olive Oil
  • One small onion
  • 2 Large cloves of garlic
  • 800g tin of whole skinned tomatoes
  • Dried or fresh marjoram, thyme, basil, oregano, etc
  • 2 Teaspoons of tomato paste1

Method

  1. Chop the onion finely. Crush garlic with the flat of the knife blade and then chop it finely.

  2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan. Add the garlic and onion and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon until garlic is soft and onion is transparent.

  3. Chop tomatoes into small pieces2 and when the onion and garlic are both transparent and soft, add the tomatoes and all the juice that was in the can with them.

  4. Taste the sauce and if the sauce isn't 'tomatoey' enough, add some tomato paste and stir well.

  5. Add dried herbs to taste now or fresh ones just before the sauce is finished and add salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Simmer sauce until thick and rich.

The sauce tastes best if eaten immediately, but it can be reheated.


1 Or puree, the thick stuff anyway, not the thinner stuff.
2 The size that you cut the tomatoes up will affect the final chunkiness of the sauce.

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Entry Data
Entry ID: A732827 (Edited)

Written and Researched by:
annie the great

Edited by:
Konrad (1x6^(9-8)x(8-1)=42) (OMFC) (Goo at work, alabaster at home)


Date: 10   June   2002


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Referenced Guide Entries
Tomatoes
Garlic
How to Pronounce Italian
Italian Cooking


Related BBC Pages
BBC Food


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