Sunday, October 4, 2009

Sunripened & roasted tomatoes pasta sauce

All through summer local farmers sell their produce at small stalls alongside country roads. A couple of weekends ago the season finished and I bought 15 kg (33 lbs) of wonderful sun ripe tomatoes to make sauce for winter.
They are almost too beautiful to be eaten, the colors and shapes are so pretty. The recipe that follows is for 5 kilos (11 lbs).

Skinning is a must. My fastest and easiest method is to transfer the tomatoes (once the skin has cracked from being a few seconds in boiling water) with the help of a pair of thongs into a sieve..

and then drop them straight into the kitchen sink where I leave them to cool.

Once they have cooled it is easy to slide the skins off, which I leave in the sink. Continuing to work in the sink, I half the skinned tomatoes and put them aside into a big bowl. The beauty of this method is that the kitchen remains clean, all the mess stays in the sink (I can't believe I am posting a pic of my messy kitchen sink here, but it illustrates the point)

A third of the halved tomatoes go in single layers on baking sheets lined with parchment (cut side up) to be roasted in a preheated oven (160Celsius/320 Fahrenheit) for approx. 80 minutes. The roast tomatoes will give the sauce a wonderful rich taste. All remaining tomatoes get chopped/teared into chunks.

Next pouring some good quality olive oil into a heavy sauce pan so that the bottom is covered in a nice layer. Chopping a big onion into little chunks and frying it in the olive oil on a small heat until translucent. Crushing two gloves of garlic and continuing to fry until fragrant. Then adding the oven roasted and chopped tomatoes and several teaspoons of Herbes de Provence.

Taking a big handful of basil..

..separating the leaves from the stalks and dropping them in the saucepan

then stirring the basil into the tomatoes and letting the sauce cook for at least five hours.. I cooked this one for seven. Choose the lowest heat, it should bubble just very softly. Stir occasionally.

When cooked, the sauce thickens considerably, more than a third of the liquid will have evaporated. Season with salt and pepper to taste. You can either leave it at a chunky consistency, or puree to a smooth sauce.

Love the contrast of the sauce's rich red color with the ink black pasta and fresh basil. This sauce freezes extremely well, I fill dozens of freezerbags with it so we can have a taste of summer all through winter.

Bon appétit!

23 comments:

  1. Dear MaiTai

    It sounds delicious!!! I will try it. Thank you for sharing xx

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  2. Thank you matcanavez and good luck!

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  3. MaiTai thank you so very much for posting your recipe -- I love homemade pasta sauce...IMO life can't get much better than that. Well except maybe with homemade bread.

    You have kept a slice of summer for your family and friends <3

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  4. MaiTai, it looks like you leave the basil as one big bunch when you toss it into the sauce. There is no chopping at all? What about the stems? It seems so much simpler, but I've always been afraid of a mouthful of basil stalk, so I've obsessively chopped before stirring into my sauce.

    LOVE the roasting idea for some of the tomatoes. That had not occurred to me. I'll bet the flavor is deep and rich because of it. This seems like a very Provençal sauce, with the oignon and Fines Herbes, but no ail.

    Merci, cher MaiTai!

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  5. Oops, I see there IS garlic in the sauce. My mistake. How could you not have put garlic in such a tomatoey nectar? :-)

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  6. Did you wear your apron??? :) Actually, that looks scruptious and you made it seem easy. Tomorrow after work, I'll buy some tomatoes too but I don't think I'll be making quite as much. Thanks for illustrating your technique. It looks like such a fresh tasting sauce.

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  7. andiamo, I agree with you on both.. homemade pasta sauce and bread are the best, not only because of the taste, but there is something incredibly comforting about it <3

    cakeymakeybakey, the roasting really brings out the flavor, I sometimes mix a few roasted tomatoes into a tomato/mozarella salad, yummy! Re the basil, I do seperate the leaves (I see how the text line can be easily overlooked..) but I don't chop them, as I find this makes them bleed and soggy. If the leaves are gigantic, I would tear them before adding to the sauce. The once in the pic I left intact...after seven hours of cooking they were pretty much well dissolved!

    emilyatheart, of course I wore my apron! ;-) Good luck for your sauce tomorrow, I promise it is as easy to make as it looks :-)

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  8. Dearest MT, this looks absolutely delicious!! <3

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  9. Thank you DD! You can have it in two weeks time if you like ;-)

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  10. I can almost inhale the aroma... looks delicious!

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  11. Dearest MT, you are an absolute gem! Very kind of you to offer :)

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  12. Ooops, the thank you was for Rose..DD we just crossed posts. And of course you are very welcome! :-)

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  13. Wow. I'm speechless. You've taken spaghetti and turned it into an art form. The colors are amazing! Did you make sauce from all of the tomatoes?

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  14. Thank you Heather! I agree with you, the black pasta(which is dyed with cuttlefish ink) makes a perfect and dramatic backdrop for the sauce ;-) And yes, I used all tomatoes in one go, it is much less work that way.

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  15. definitely gotta try this! thanks for sharing

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  16. I hope you'll love it, dear DB!

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  17. Mmmm yummy, I acually leant into my screen to smell the aroma! It looks delicious and such a simple recipe to try! Thanks for sharing!

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  18. Thank you Justine! The aroma is lovely indeed, it fills the house with a scent of summer! And yes I agree, simple is the best :-)

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  19. Short and sweet, your comment made me smile CashmereLibrarian!

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  20. Oh my goodness!! It looks divine! I wish we could have smellnet.com!

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  21. hahahaa, smell.net.. love it! Thank you dear DB <3

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