If you have ever been to a real family Italian restaurant you have doubtless been treated to some variation of classic red sauce. Side note – chains do not count. The only Italians that would eat at Olive Garden are malnourished starving street urchins — and many of them would turn their noses up at it. My personal favorite is this place I went to in college rumored to have been run by a guy in witness protection from the mob. One time I was there getting a chicken parm for lunch and a guido looking guy came in, ordered a sandwich and ‘paid’ with a bag of Rolexes.
Anyway, as usual, I became determined to make great pasta and red sauce at home, but never quite got there.
Until now.
Now it may seem that spaghetti and red sauce just involves opening a jar, but I have to say that once you spend some time cooking from scratch you’ll never be able to open a jar of Ragu again. If you really want to scare yourself straight, try looking at the ingredient list on a jar of pasta sauce, and compare it to the Dinner Tonite Genuine Italian Red Sauce at home:
Ingredients:
1. Buy or grow great ingredients. The basis of all good cooking is to turn great ingredients into great food. If you start with canned tomatoes or processed ingredients you are shooting yourself in the foot. It’s not hard to grow Roma tomatoes and basil in your yard. Now to be fair it is possible to make this recipe using canned whole tomatoes. But sometime buy a fresh tomato and cut it in half and then open a can of tomatoes. Smell them, taste them and you’ll see the difference.
2. Blanch the tomatoes. If you have forgotten how – get a large pot or dutch oven and fill it with water, heat it to a rapid boil and then place the tomatoes in a few at a time for about a minute, just until the skin cracks. Set them aside until they are all done. Then peel them and remove the white stuff and seeds from inside. That last step was just 12 words, but it’ll take like 15 minutes per pound of tomatoes. At least. It’s not fun. Keeping a glass of wine handy helps. But it’ll actually be worth it. I promise.
3. Drizzle some olive oil in the bottom of a heavy pot, add the tomatoes and heat over low heat. Also add some salt, red pepper flakes and a splash of white wine.
4. Pour the rest of the olive oil in a 1 quart saucepan. Smash all the garlic and peel it, toss it in as well. Loosely chop most of the basil and add it, too. Reserve some basil to finish the plates, however. Place this mix over very low heat and let it steep. VERY low heat. We are warming, not cooking. Whatever setting on your stove you think of as low, go one lower just in case. You will be adding the olive oil to the sauce a bit at a time over the next hour so do not burn it and do not heat it hot enough to cook the basil or garlic.
5. Let the tomatoes cook until they are soft and begin to break down. At some point they will be soft enough to crush with a potato masher. When they are, smash away. With a teaspoon, add some of the olive oil that is steeping, but don’t bother to add the garlic or basil, all the flavor you need is dissolved in the oil. You will need to simmer the tomatoes for a long time. Maybe 1 hour. Maybe more.
6. As the tomatoes simmer their way to sauciness keep stirring and keep adding olive oil. The key is to make the sauce rich, but not oily.
7. While the tomatoes are simmering put on a large pot of boiling, salted water for the pasta.
8. Boil the pasta, when it’s finished add it, still wet, to the red sauce pan. Don’t drain it, just grab it with tongs and transfer it from the water to the sauce. Add 1/2 tbsp of butter per pound of tomatoes and toss. Work it together. The butter and water from the wet pasta will finish the sauce to a velvety texture.
9. Plate it and add a pinch of basil.
You can add roasted chicken, sausage, meatballs. But unless you live in a Roman Vomitorium, pasta and sauce is a nice dinner.
Wines to accompany the ultimate Italian red sauce at home? 2005 La Storia Cuvee 32, Peter Franus Brandlin Zinfandel or for something lighter: Owen Roe’s Sharecropper PInot Noir.