Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce
While our gardens and farmers markets abound with tomatoes in the late summer and early fall, I enjoy making tomato sauce; if kept in the freezer, the tomatoes' sweetness can last all year long.
Ingredients:
- 5 large fresh tomatoes
- 1 small onion
- 5 garlic cloves
- 1/2 tube tomato paste
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter (4 T unsalted butter)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- Salt to taste
- Basil leaves to taste
- Olive oil
Directions:
- Leave 1/butter out to soften at room temperature
- Use a small paring knife to cut around the tomatoes; make two perpendicular incisions like a cross at the top and bottom of the tomato
- Prepare a bowl of cold water with ice cubes
- Bring water to boil in a small saucepan, add tomato and let sit in boiling water for 10-15 seconds then transfer to ice water
- Take tomato out of ice water, and gently peel the skin off
- Chop tomato by cutting each horizontally once and vertically eight sections
- Chop onion into small cubes
- Chop garlic finely
- Melt the 1/2 stick of butter at medium heat in a not nonstick pan, then raise heat to medium high heat once fully melted and stir for 3-5 minutes until butter is brown and smells nutty
- Add olive oil to a medium saucepan at medium heat
- Add chopped onions and garlic to saucepan and stir periodically for 3-4 minutes until onions and garlic are softened and clear
- Lower heat to medium low flame and add 1/2 tube of tomato paste, stir constantly for about 1 minute to make sure it doesn’t burn at the bottom
- Add tomatoes, basil leaves and sugar to pot, stir fully, bring to a boil at high heat then lower to 3/4 to simmer with closed lid for 30 min
- Taste and add a generous pinch of salt, open lid and reduce for 30 min
- Blend with an immersion blender
- Add brown butter into the saucepan, and continue blending until a smooth consistency is reached
- Continue to reduce until reaching a desired texture and thickness
- Mix with al dente spaghetti
- Garnish with fresh basil
- Serve!
Serves 4. 30 minutes active time, 1.5 hours total time.
