This classic sauce of tomatoes is made all over the south where tomatoes grow in abundance. The juicy pulp of fresh garden tomatoes is cooked down in a generous amount of olive oil and garlic to make a thick sauce than can be used immediately or bottled and preserved. It is one of the traditional ways to preserve the summer and autumn tomato harvest for winter. I make several different types of tomato sauce but this is the basis for most of them. In France this would be called tomato coulis and in Italy it is sometimes called sugo or salsa.
- 2 kg of tomato pulp , skinned, deseeded and roughly chopped.
- 1 tsp crushed or chopped garlic
- Olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- cracked black pepper to taste
Prepare the tomatoes by peeling and roughly chopping the flesh and discarding the stalks. Put a large pan on the stove and pour a generous layer of olive oil over the bottom. Throw in the garlic and fry until the arma rises then add the salt, pepper and then tomatoes. Cook for 30 minutes or so until the sauce is rich and thick.
Variations
Keeping the sauce simple like this gives it greater flexibility but I do like to make a few batches with added herbs and other flavourings to make a variety of pasta ready sauces. For a mediterranean sauce add a herb bundle of:1 sprig rosemary, 2 sprigs thyme, 2 Bay leaves tied together with the tomatoes and remove before bottling. For a tomato and basil sauce stir in chopped fresh basil 1 minute before the end of cooking.
Kitchen Garden Recipes 