A good tomato sauce is crucial to so many aspects of my cooking. Jarred sauces are bleah - they're usually way too sweet for my taste and a good homemade sauce is ridiculously easy to make. This recipe makes about 4 cups of sauce. If you need more, just dump in more tomatoes.
Sauce:
1 yellow onion
1 carrot
2 cloves garlic
2 28oz cans peeled whole tomatoes
oregeno
basil
salt
black pepper
dried bay leaf
Pour 1 Tbsp vegetable oil into a medium pot. Medium heat.
Finely dice the onion - you're aiming for 1cm, but the smaller you can get it, the better
Onion goes in the hot oil to 'sweat' for 5 minutes. Stir the onion around or twice - if it starts to brown, turn down the heat. We're going for translucent, not caramelized.
Peel the garlic and finely dice - again, the smaller the better. Even better is to use a garlic press, but I've been informed that this is a fairly specialized instrument (who knew? I grew up Italian). Toss the garlic in the pot with the onion.
Open the cans of whole, peeled tomatoes and puree in a blender or food processor. 11 seconds on 'high' should be fine - the key is to get all the chunks out. Depending on the size of your blender, you may need to do this in two batches.
Pour the pureed tomatoes into the pot with the onion and garlic. Stir.
Peel the carrot and finely dice. Again, about 1cm. Notice a pattern? We're trying to get all the vegetables to dissolve in the sauce. Chopped carrot goes into the sauce. Carrots are naturally sweet, and we're using the sugar here to cut the acidity of the tomato sauce. This means we get a more natural flavor to the sauce and don't have to use refined sugar. Trust me, makes the sauce awesome.
Spices time! 1 dried bay leaf. 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1Tbsp oregano, 1Tbsp basil. If you're using fresh oregano or basil, quadruple the amounts used (and chop them up very well). You can give your sauce a bit of a kick with red pepper flakes.
Stir well and reduce the heat to medium-low. You're going to cook the sauce for about 45 minutes. Technically you could use the sauce as soon as it heats through, but it won't have a well-developed taste and it'll be a bit runny. The trick here is the heat - you don't want the sauce at a full boil, just a simmer (see the page on cooking terms for a distinction between the two). One big bubble popping at the surface every 5 seconds is about right.
Stir every 10 minutes so the bottom doesn't burn.
Note: The lovely thing about this sauce is you can keep it on the stove for however long you need to - just stir it once in a while so the bottom doesn't burn. It's practically impossible to overcook - if you feel the sauce is too thick, stir in a half-cup of water.
