Marcella Hazan’s Classic Tomato Sauce
This recipe is so simple and shouldn’t be as good as it is. If you have one tomato sauce in your cooking arsenal, this should be it. We use it primarily for pasta but it can be used for pizza and as a base for soups, stews and casseroles.
- 796 milliliters canned whole tomatoes
- 2 medium onions
- 71 grams unsalted butter (5T)
- salt & pepper (to taste)
Cut the onions in half along their equators, top and tail them and then peel. Put the onions in a frying pan. You can either smooshed the tomatoes with your hands to break them up as you put them in the frying pan, or you can use a wooden spoon to smoosh them against the side of the pan they're in. Add the block of butter to the frying pan and turn the heat to medium.
When it starts to simmer and the butter has melted, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, for about an hour to an hour and a half. The sauce should be thickened and darker, somewhere between tomato sauce and tomato paste.
Remove (and compost or use elsewhere) the onions, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
