Red Sauce

I developed this recipe years and years ago even before cooking was what I did and has become my go-to, good with everything, suitable with anything, if I don't know what to make I make this, very versatile, easy, simply delicious- red sauce.

Now usually I add either white or red wine but with the Corona related alcohol ban I have to do without, I just add veggie stock to replace the liquid but wine just gives it that fabulousness, you know, when you can't put your finger on why it's so delicious, it's the wine. Now I won't ever tell you what wine to use with what ingredients your adding or using this sauce with but for pizza base and beef I usually add dry red (I like Pinotage) and with fish or chicken or pork, it's better to use dry white (I drink Sauvignon Blanc so that's what I use) otherwise you'll end up with a very sweet sauce.

It uses basic ingredients but you can make it as complicated or as ordinary as you want, this version is ordinary. You will note that I don't use onions in the sauce, I like a tomato sauce to be fresh and it must taste like tomato, onions seem to overpower the fragrant red beauties.

I reduce it until thick and use it as a base for pizza's, add onions and use as gravy for pap, add fried steak cubes, left over wors from the braai sliced into thin rounds, base for pasta sauces with added chili or peppers... the list goes on and on!!

Make it in bulk and freeze in usable portions for easy tasty meals in moments eg. after a crazy day buy a roast chicken, take the meat off the bone and stir into the sauce, while you're doing this your pasta is cooking et voila - a fab meal in minutes!

When you have a lot of tomatoes that at not lekker for salad anymore quarter them (leave the skin on), season with salt, pepper and sugar and a drizzle of oil and roast in a hottish oven until soft and starting to brown then use it instead of the canned tomato.. its faaaaantastic!!

chopping some fresh parsley and stirring it in just before serving ads a lovely freshness.

A bit of patience is needed with this sauce, but just a tad though. Gently fry the garlic at a low temp to ensure it doesn't burn, burnt garlic is awful and will spoil the entire dish, if you burn it start over. When you add the tomato paste, fry gently with the garlic until the oil is red and the tomato smells sweet, only then you add wine (if using) and you crank up the heat to full blast. Reduce the wine, you'll be left with the fragrance and not that astringent wine taste. Once all the stuffs are added you have to simmer the sauce at a nice plop plop bubble for at least 30 minutes, 45 - 60 is even better. If the concoction in the pan gets to dry add a bit of water or veggie stock but only a bit, you don't want soup.

this is how it goes:

fry the garlic (and please enjoy the epicness of the streaks of sunlight)

add the tomato puree

add the rest of the stuff

cook

Recipe:

Red Sauce

Ingredients

3 cloves garlic-chopped

1 x 50g sachet tomato paste

Small sprig rosemary

Small sprig thyme

½ packet Basil roughly chopped

5ml Dried Oregano

100 ml red or white wine

2 cans Chopped Tomatoes

200ml Pasata or Tomato Puree

10ml sugar

45ml olive oil

Salt and pepper

Directions

Heat olive oil over medium heat, add the garlic to the olive oil and fry until opaque (take care not to brown the garlic).

Add the tomato paste and fry until the oil is red and the paste smells sweet

Stir in the fresh herbs and dried oregano

Add the wine and a generous pinch of salt and turn the heat up.

Let the wine simmer on high heat until reduced by two thirds.

Add the tomatoes, pasata, sugar, salt and pepper

Reduce the heat and simmer gently until reduced and thick (45 minutes to a hour adding water bit by bit if needed)

Taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper and sugar if necessary. Simmer for 5 minutes after adding the seasoning.

Leave to cool and puree if desired.

Here's is what I did with it Friday evening:

I added roast tomatoes towards the end of the cooking time (I quartered 3 small tomatoes)

I cooked it until quite thick and added 250ml cream

(when you add cream to any savoury dish you have to amp up the salt)

I added cleaned and halved prawn tails and cooked the whole shebang just until the prawns turned white (further cooking will overcook the prawns)

I served it over Farfalle pasta (pasta bows).

First mix some of the sauce with the pasta and then spoon some on to for prettyness sake (and if you have a family like mine, spooning it over ensure nobody get more that others)