Tomato-Basil Sauce

The Italian tradition of making home-made tomato sauce takes place every month of February in my in-laws’ place.  A garage full of a hundred of boxes of tomatoes is one of the most amazing sight that I have ever seen in my life as a cook.  The challenge of making my own tomato sauce really tickled my thoughts.  I have only used canned tomato sauce back home in Manila.  In fairness, my tomato sauce is delicious and I love preparing it on pasta for my family most of the Sunday afternoons.  But when I moved in Australia, my taste changed.  I think I cannot be fully satisfied anymore of any pasta recipe that requires tomato sauce if the latter is not home-made.

How they do it: The first step is to steam all the tomatoes in a huge steamer.  Tomatoes are cooked when they are already soft and the skin can be easily peeled.  Cool the tomatoes.  Peel them one by one.  Put them in sterilized bottles.  Seal the bottle.  Sterilize the bottled tomatoes for an hour or so – this is the preservation process.  That’s it!  Sounds easy?  Not really…We usually finish all the tomatoes in two days!  Then, the year-supply of tomato sauce for the entire family is ready.  We produce two to three hundreds of bottled tomato sauces.

But for a busy mom like me, and if I don’t have this supply of tomato sauce, this is How I do it: Pour olive oil in a deep pan.  Saute one to two heads of garlic until they are soft.  Don’t brown the garlic.  Put the 1 kilo sliced tomatoes in, stirring continuously for a minute.  Put the lid on and leave it simmering in medium heat.  After a couple of minutes give the tomatoes a stir.  You can see here that the tomatoes are already soft and starting to juice.  No need to add water as the tomatoes will cook in its own juice.  Lower the heat and put the lid back.  Make sure to stir it once every five minutes.  When the tomatoes are already in its sauce-like consistency, it’s ready for seasoning. Season with salt and put in a handful of fresh basil.  Ground black pepper is optional.

The sauce is ready when it is not watery anymore.  You can bottle the sauce (and do the preservation process by steaming it) or keep it in a container and refrigerate it.

Blenderize the tomato sauce before bottling it or you can do that right before preparing your pasta.

It is worth making your own home-made tomato sauce once in a while.  I love using my sauce not only for pasta but for chicken, meat or seafood recipes.