Pasta's Perfect Partner

There's no debate that summer is the best time to make fresh tomato sauce. However, if you have a good can of tomatoes or a bottle of passata, it's always a good time to make tomato sauce regardless of the season.

Pasta with Fresh Tomato SaucePhoto by2foodtrippers

Until you've made it at home, tomato sauce has an almost mystical quality. It's time to bust that myth.

As Americans, we grew up commending local Italian restaurants for the quality of their sauces as if the recipes were written by Massimo Bottura. However, making a basic tomato sauce is actually super simple for home chefs like us. In fact, tomato sauce is the first dish that many people truly cook at home from scratch.

This is especially true each summer. For two to four months from June to September, depending on where you live, good ripe tomatoes are relatively easy to find at local farmers markets and supermarkets. There's a certain vegetal nature to fresh red tomatoes that simply can't be replicated. The sauce you make from them is a rare treat that no other sauce, not even sauce made with high-quality canned tomatoes imported from Italy, can match.

That being said, you can also make a great sauce at home with both fresh and canned whole tomatoes or passata (a special blanched, unseasoned tomato puree generally made in Italy.) In fact, some people prefer using canned tomatoes. This preference may be due to the quality of the source of the tomatoes, especially if the canned tomatoes were grown on an Italian volcano like Mount Vesuvius. But, to us, there's still something exhilarating about making and eating the fresh stuff.

Whichever tomatoes you use, if you do all the basics, you can create a magnificent sauce that will shine on its own but especially on top of quality pasta.

Ingredients

This is essentially a four ingredient recipe if you subtract the staples (i.e. olive oil, salt and pepper). And, if you use canned tomatoes during the off season, you may have everything you need to make tomato sauce in your pantry.

• Fresh or Canned Tomatoes - You don't have to use plum tomatoes but we recommend using them or San Marzano tomatoes if you can find them. You can also experiment with tomatoes of different varieties. You may discover wonderful new flavors. Don't worry about the color - there's nothing wrong with sauce made with yellow or even ripe green tomatoes if they taste good.
• Onion - White onions are ideal for this sauce. However, outside of red onions, any 'sweet' or yellow onion will do.
• Garlic - Since our palettes lean toward the flavors of Southern Italy, we always use garlic when we make fresh tomato sauce. However, you can omit the garlic if you're not a fan. Be aware that alliums like garlic provide the sauce with a vegetal backbone. Without garlic, your sauce may taste hollow.
• Salt - When you make your sauce, take notice of the flavor before and after salt is added. The difference can be remarkable. It may seem counterintuitive but salt distinctively enhances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
• Crushed Chili Flake - We like a little chili piquancy in our sauce but this ingredient is optional if you prefer less heat.
• Olive Oil - We use high quality extra virgin olive oil for this recipe but you can opt to use a cheaper oil without incurring a huge loss of flavor.
• Black Pepper - This is another optional ingredient that you can choose to omit. Since the flavors don't conflict with the tomato and enhance the fruit, we're all for the addition. Also, make sure your black pepper is freshly ground.
• Fresh Basil - Fresh basil, which we always prefer in tomato sauce, is most abundant during the summer. That being said, you can experiment with different herbs like tarragon, parsely or even fennel fronds. However, you probably want to stay away from cilantro in this recipe.

How To Make Fresh Tomato Sauce

Making fresh tomato sauce incorporates all of the great elements of cooking in the kitchen.

When you make tomato sauce from scratch, you see how heat and liquid break down the walls of the tomato, softening it into a pasty liquid. You also witness evaporation when the water dissipates from the mixture as it thickens from a soup to a sauce. These are keys to understanding the basics of flavor - how the almost electric charge of salt brings the sweet, acidic and umami flavors of the tomato to life and how ingredients like onion and garlic provide flavor structure against the sweetness of the fruity tomatoes.

So let's go!

The first step in this recipe is to bring a large pot of water to a boil. While the water in the pot is heating, cut crosses into the non-stem end of each tomato with a paring knife. Then, once the water comes to a boil, drop all of the tomatoes into the pot and blanch them for one to two minutes. Remove the tomatoes and place them in an ice bath or a bowl filled with cool water.

Once cool, peel the tomatoes. The skin should practically slide right off.

Once the tomatoes are peeled, cut them into quarters so that they break down neatly once they're in the pot. With this approach, you won't make a mess when you press and stir the tomatoes because the tomatoes won't burst. You can always scrape the extra liquid off the cutting board and into the pot when you add the tomatoes.

Pro Tip: You can use a food mill to puree the tomatoes if you want your sauce to be smooth. We prefer our tomato sauce to have a chunkier more rustic consistency.

Heat the pan for a few minutes on medium heat and then pour in the olive oil. Once the olive is heated, sauté the chopped onions until they're just softened and slightly translucent. Once they're soft, add the garlic and stir for about a minute until the garlic is just fragrant.

Note: You can add canned tomatoes or tomato passata directly to the sauté if you're using one or both of those proucts. As respects passata, just about 10 minutes of cooking is necessary.

Pour in the tomatoes and any accumulated juice on the cutting board. Stir, pressing the red tomato flesh against the side of the pot while stirring.

The tomatoes will begin to break down after about 10 minutes. Turn the heat down to simmer and cook the tomatoes, stirring in the same manner until the tomatoes have totally broken down and the mixture becomes saucy.

Pro Tip: Add water any time that the mixture gets too thick to prevent the sauce from burning.

Once the tomatoes have broken down and the sauce is thick, add salt and pepper to your taste.

This the point in the recipe when it's best to add fresh herbs. We simply tear our basil but you can chop it if that's your preference.

Put your sauce aside and cover it to keep warm while you boil the pasta.

Partering the Sauce with Pasta

For this recipe, we paired our fresh tomato sauce with hearty rigatoni noodles produced by The Pasta Lab in Philadelphia. Their dense, earthy pasta gets its flavor and heft from organic stone ground spelt flour and other ingredients from the mid-Atlantic region.

Making this kind of pasta is an expensive process that can only be achieved using a pasta extruder with special brass dyes. The result is hearty, toothsome and wonderful. Plus, the pasta's rough outer surface allows the sauce to cling to the noodles which is ideal.

Once you choose your pasta for this recipe, prepare it according to the box or bag's instructions. (Our pasta's instructions specified an eight-minute boil.) Be sure to set aside a half cup of the pasta water before straining the pasta.

Fish out the pasta directly from the boiling water using tongs or a large slotted spoon. After straining it, add the pasta to a large sauté pan.

Add three to four ladlefuls of sauce to the pan if you're making a small amount of pasta for just a couple of people. Contrarily, if you're making an entire box of pasta for a family, add all of the sauce.

Mix the pasta and sauce over medium heat until they're incorporated. If you choose to finish the sauce with a cheese like pecorino or parmigiana, turn off the heat and let the pan stay on the hot burner. After three minutes, add the grated cheese and stir until everything is cohesive.

Plate in small flat bowls. Garnish with torn fresh basil unless you opt to use a different herb.

This recipe was originally published on 2foodtrippers. Consider subscribing to 2foodtrippers if you enjoyed it.