Basic Pasta Sauce
Over a year ago
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Ingredients
- 6 large onions. peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 Head of garlic peeled and finely chopped
- 1 head of celery trimmed and chopped
- 4 packs of smoked bacon chopped and diced. If you can get pancetta in large enough quantities then use that
- 5 or 6 Carrots Peeled and Chopped into a small dice
- 2 Fennel Bulbs chopped
- 2 or 3 jars of smoked peppers. dreained and chopped
- 2 large packs of mushrooms sliced
- 1 small tube of tomatoe puree
- chicken stock either ½ a litre of fresh or the concentrated stuff in the bottle (whole bottle) from Knorr which seems ok.
- 8 tins of chopped tomatoes
- ½ bottle of red wine
- 2 big bunches of fresh basil chopped
- salt and pepper
- A good glug of olive oil
Accompaniment
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Description
This is a staple for me as the sauce is so versatile that it has become a basis for other dishes. I cook it at the beginning of every month and store it.
Method
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1
Put the oil in a massive pan (a huge pan is required because we are cooking in some volume here) and throw in the onions, garlic, celery, bacon or pancetta, carrots, fennel and peppers. Give it a few good stirs, lid on and let it sweat for 5 - 10 mins. Next, in with the mushrooms and tomato puree and let this cook for a further 5 mins. Then throw in all the red wine and bring to the boil and cook on full heat for a further 2 mins. Chicken stock in next and a tin of chopped tomatoes at a time stirring them in. The adding of the tomatoes should take 2 mins per tin for the sauce to get back up to boiling point. Once all the tomatoes are in turn the heat right down and simmer for 1 hour and 45 mins. Taste, season with salt and pepper and maybe add a desert spoon of sugar if required to balance out the tomatoes. Add basil for the last 2 - 3 mins of cooking.
Once I have made this sauce I freeze it in Tupperware containers or use it as a base for spag bog or chilli. Recipe to follow soon.
Chef's Tips
I make this every month and freeze it. I have been making this basic sauce in the same way for the last 22 years. If you want to jazz it up throw in some cream as you are reheating it to go with some pasta and throw on some Parmesan cheese at the end - it tastes fabulous.
Another good idea is to buy some sausage meat mix in some fresh herbs or dried if you have those to hand. Form into meatballs and shallow fry for a few mins until cooked. Once cooked put them in the sauce, let them absorb some flavour from the sauce (maybe 10 mins with the sauce gently simmering as you don't want the bubbling to break up the meatballs) and serve with spaghetti as a meatball dish.
I use the sauce as the basis to enhance home made chilli and Spag Bog - recipe to follow.
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