How to make easy and delicious tomato sauce

The tomato sauce that simmers for hours tastes great. But a fresh tomato sauce that takes just minutes to cook has a charm all of its own — especially when it's made with local tomatoes at the height of their flavour.

There are many excellent versions of this type of sauce. This one comes fromThe Sopranos Family Cookbook: As Compiled by Artie Bucco.

• Cook two large, smashed garlic cloves in 50 millilitres (1/4 cup) olive oil over medium heat for about four minutes or until the garlic is golden
• Add one kilogram (two pounds) very ripe tomatoes, peeled, drained and chopped. (If fresh ones are not in season, use one 540-millilitre/28–ounce can Italian tomatoes, drained and chopped)
• Add salt to taste and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until the sauce is thick. Stir in eight to 10 fresh basil leaves, torn into pieces
• Serve over hot, cooked pasta

This sauce doesn't have the complexity of its long-simmered cousin, but that isn't the only kind of sauce permitted on pasta, as the ads for the canned supermarket sauces would have you believe.

A sauce with peels and seeds in it — horrors! That's some people's opinion, and they're entitled to it. But it's all a matter of taste. The skin and seeds both contribute a great deal to the flavour of a tomato sauce, but if you want to remove the evidence, put the sauce through a food mill. Or make a somewhat coarser sauce with a blender or food processor. Or let it be, with skins and seeds intact.

• Another sauce tip: when you've seen one tomato, you haven't seen them all. Different varieties have different tastes, and even a single tomato has several aspects to its character
• It can be sweet, sour and salty, all at the same time. You can choose different flavourings to bring out the different facets
• Basil, chives, sweet peppers and even mint will bring out sweetness
• Wine, citrus, capers and vinegars will bring out the sour
• The salty aspect will respond to anchovies, olives, capers and cured meats

The next time you want to enjoy a homemade tomato sauce, but don't have the time to labour over a sauce all day, try this quick and easy recipe and enjoy.

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