Thursday, August 7, 2008

If It Ain't Easy, I Don't Cook It


The Yin and Yang of Salsa Fresca
or
Mamma Eva's Basic Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
fresh tomatoes
1 carrot (peeled and cut in half)
1 onion (cut in half)
fresh basil (to taste)
salt (to taste)
extra virgin olive oil
milk (some)

Cook the onion for a minute or two in a couple of tablespoons of oil. Add the tomatoes that you have washed and cut in half. How many tomatoes? Well, Mamma Eva's recipes never get that specific. Enough tomatoes to fill a decent sized pot about halfway...does that help? How about a couple of kilos of tomatoes? Experiment and see what works for you! Add the carrot and the basil. Cook about half an hour or until the tomatoes start to break down. Pass the sauce through your passaverdura (I'm not sure what this tool is called in English, take a look at this photo and then let me know what you would call it, please!) Be sure to really work all the tomato through the passaverdura. The liquid will go through quickly, but you have to keep turning and turning the handle diligently to get the other parts of the tomato through, but it's worth it because that's the stuff that thickens your sauce up nicely. Put the sauce back on the stovetop over a medium/low heat and let it cook some more. The longer you cook it the thicker it gets. At this point add the salt and some more olive oil, if desired. Adding some milk will cut the acidity of the sauce.
Buon appetito!

3 comments:

Fabrizio Zanelli said...

Uh poor me to see this article before dinner. Slurp !!!!

Fabrizio Zanelli said...

passaverdura = strainer? Of course I'm the less able to find the exact English name, so I'm curious like you to know how it could be call in English ;-) --- I will send this post to and English friend: Jilly of Mentone and Montecarlo DP

Unknown said...

That is a Food Mill. Very useful for roasted vegetables or even to rice potatoes instead of mashing.