Dag: 9. februar 2015

In people’s mind, tomato sauce is so linked with Italy that many are suprised to learn that until 1700, no tomatoes where used in Italian food. For that was when the new «Golden Apple» from america was finally accepted by Europeans. The southern Italian and the Spanish where the first to embrace it, while the English continued to belive it was poisonous for another 100 years.

Of cource, there are many kinds of tomatoes, and at least as many ways of making a tomato sauce. The soffritto or base for the sauce is very important, as it determens the ultimate flavour, and it will ofen be matched to the type of pasta, occation or mood.  Some cooks use only onion in the soffritto, while some add finely chopped garlic. Other slice the garlic for a stronger taste, or infuse the oil with a whole garlic clove for a more subtile flavour. Sone add celery and carrot, then pass the sauce through a mouli for a smooth velvety and quit elegant sauce; other prefer to melt  an anchovy into the oil and include chilli and capers. for extra pungency, or add chopped pancetta or lardo to give the sauce a rich savoury note. And then there are herbs to consider: parsley, basil or thyme, added at the beginning or at the end of the cooking time. Some finish the sauce with a drop of olive oil. others with a knob of butter. Some use parmesan; others don’t. Then there are the cooking time: short for a fresher, more acidic taste; or longer, for a more traditional, redused sauce.

her i show you some of my favourite tomato sauces, but i want you to feel free to improvise – just as they would in Italy – to make them your favourites.

• Pasta al pomodoro – pasta (usally spaghetti) with tomato sauce – is probably the most eaten dish in the whole of IOtaly, from the small islands south of Sicily to the montain villages perched in the Alps Wonderfully simple and very tasty, it couuldn’t be easier Make the sauce while the pasta is cooking. When the pasta is al dente. drain it and, while it is still steaming, thoss it with the tomato sauce, and there you have it. You will soon understand why are addicted to pasta al pomodoro

it’s a debate like the chicken and the egg, what’s more important: the pasta or the sauce?

Is pasta just the logical base for a great stew, or is the sauce just an aftertought that might enhage a beautifully worked sculpture in dough?

In this chapter we come down on the side of the sauce (having taken the other side elseware on this web). We discuss some classic accompaniments, dressings and condiments that can be made separatly, kept and used whenever a dish needs elevation.

You’ll encounter words such as sugo, salsa and ragu here, used to indicate variations in a way Italians describe sauces: a ragu (or tocco in Ligurian dialect) is usually a meat sauce; a sugo is a thin sauce, often tomato; and a salsa is a thicker vegetable sauce containg pieces of vegetable, not pureed.

We begin, naturally, with the king of sauces – pesto, which is the pride of Liguria.

For centuries, homes in the Italian contryside have been scented by the pot of soup that hangs permanently over the coals in the fireplace, welcomming the farmer home from the fields and hunter home from the forest. Soaps are among the most ancient staples of Italian cuisine. Very much of plesant origin, they are the ultimate comfort food: economical to prepare, yet tasty and nourishing. Mainly made of vegetables and legumes, they are often flavoured with a soffritto of olive oil, onion and pancetta, and bulked up with a handful of pastina (tiny pasta shapes) or fragments shaken from the bottom of the container where the dryed pasta can ge stored. Eaten with bread, and topped with some olive oil or pesto, the soup becomes a meal in itself.

Then there are the lighter soup , made with a clear broth (brodo) to which pasta has been added, and designed to be eaten as an appetiser. In taly, broths are very populare in the months from autumn to spring. Many houses have pots of broth simmering on the stove, in preparation for tortellini in brodo, passatelli in brodo, or simply to be striped as a consomme before the hot entree at an elegant dinner party, served in those beautifully delicate cups with two handles.

in this chapter we discuss types of pasta in brodo, and tell you how to make some great basic stocks. Stocks will keep in the fridge for tree days, or in the freezer for up to six mounths. You can freeze it in ice-cube trys, then pop the cubes out of the trays and store them in a ziplock freezer bag.