When I was doing my graduate studies on the Mediterranean Diet, I lived in southern Italy and, of course, fell in love with the flavours of the region. Finding a recipe to give me that same flavour back home in Alberta was remarkably challenging, but after a few years of experimenting, I eventually landed on this recipe, tweaked from a recipe from Kenji Lopez-Alt.
I make a big batch and freeze it in one cup portions, and it is ready to be a twenty-minute meal. Put a pot of salted water on to boil and pop the ice cube of Red Sauce into a separate saucepan, on its own or with some spicy italian sausage. By the time the sauce is bubbling, the pasta is cooked and the two are ready to serve.
I have italicized everything here that I grow in the garden. So this recipe is heavily loaded with smugness and frugality as well as flavour. I start two San Marzano seedlings every year JUST for this recipe!
Those slow hours in the oven turn this humble prairie produce into memories of Capri.
Ingredients
- Large bag of frozen tomatoes thawed and peeled (or four 28oz cans whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes)
- ¼ cup EVOO or canola oil
- 4 tsp butter
- 8 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 1 fresh stem of basil
- 1 tsp fish sauce (skip this if you want to keep it vegetarian, but the fish sauce is magical)
- ½ minced parsley and/or basil
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
- Crush the tomatoes by hand and set three cups aside in the fridge for finishing.
- Put the oil and butter into a large dutch oven over medium-low heat.
- Mince eight garlic cloves and add them to the oil and butter, but don’t let them brown.
- Add pepper flakes and dried oregano. Stir for one minute.
- Cut the carrot into large chunks (you’ll fish them out later), then add it and the crushed tomatoes to the pot.
- Peel the onion, cut it in half and add it to the mix.
- Add the stem and leaves of basil.
- Add salt and pepper.
- Bring to a simmer.
- Put it in the oven with the lid slightly ajar and let it work its magic.
- Go do something else. This will take a while.
- When reduced by half (5 hours), pull the carrot, onion, and basil stems out.
- Add reserved tomato and fish sauce.
- Stir and enjoy!
