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 I can no longer resist this sauce, and frankly, I don’t know why I even try. When Chef Francesco Tonelli first showed me ten years ago, it was one of many culinary school revelations. (Bested only by the brown butter sage sauce spooned over pillows of airy gnocchi. aahhh…) So, I wasn’t surprised when I found Molly at Orangette raving about it. Or when Rachel Eats (who lives in Rome and can get authentic, perfect tomato sauce every single day) fawned over it too.
So what is it with this sauce that it moves people to essays, “something almost magical happens”, and adjectives like “va-va-voom”? Is it a sliver of garlic, red pepper flakes, a glug of olive oil or, dare I suggest, pancetta?
No, my dear friend, it’s none of those. It is butter. And a yellow onion. Cooked slowly, ever so slowly, as the sauce gurgles and plops. Two humble pantry staples that transform a 28-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes into something lush and velvety. Reminding you how fresh and sweet summer can be. Even when its 30-degrees in Tampa. So, well, yes: Va-va-voom.
Tomato Sauce
Adapted from Marcela Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking and Francesco Tonelli’s Skills II class
28 oz. whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)*
5 T unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste
Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.
QUESTION:
What is your revelatory food moment?
EAT THIS POST:
Join Chef Heather February 3 @ 11 am for a Lunch n’ Learn inspired by this post. Take an hour and a half…have lunch and learn a skill at the same time. We’ll sample this simple sauce, done three ways, (served over Rustichella d’Abruzzo pasta – see below) and you can decide for yourself if its truly magical or not. $15 includes instruction, lunch and beverage of your choice. Register at datzdeli.com/events
RUSTICHELLA d’ABRUZZO PASTA
Out of lush green hills and golden swaying wheat of Abruzzo comes the finest artisanal pasta made by Gianluigi Piaduzzi. Using traditional techniques perfected by his grandfather in the early 1900s, Piaduzzi lovingly handcrafts his pastas with two secret ingredients: stone ground durum wheat flour from hard winter wheat and pure spring water from the Abruzzo mountains. He also extrudes the pasta through a bronze dye giving the pasta a rough texture to better hold the sauce. The use of this kind of dye works in conjunction with the drying method to yield a pasta that swells up to amazing side and have its own unique flavor. Mangia!
Tags: Datz Deli Tampa, Francisco Tonelli, Gianluigi Piaduzzi, Heather Anne Stalker, Marcela Hazan, Orangette, RachelEats
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