We’ve made the dough. We’ve rolled, cut and shaped our way through several different pastas. Sooner or later, every good Pasta School needs to answer the most important question: What are we putting on it?
For our next lesson, we’re stepping away from making pasta and heading straight for the sauce pot. And there was really only one sauce I could choose for our first sauce lesson.
Lesson 6: My Sunday Sauce
This is my tried-and-true tomato sauce, the one I’ve been making for years, the one my family knows and the one friends request again and again. People love it so much that every Christmas, I make batches of it, jar it up and give it away as gifts. But like so many recipes in my kitchen, its story started long before me.
My sauce is based on the sauce my Grammy Filomena made. I have changed it a little over the years, as recipes tend to change when they are passed from one generation to the next. Grammy used sugar in hers. I use red wine. I think she would approve.
That is one of the things I love most about family recipes. They don't have to remain frozen in time to remain meaningful. We learn the recipe, carry the traditions with us and eventually add a little bit of ourselves.
Sauce or gravy?
In my kitchen, it's sauce. I know this can start quite the debate among Italian-American families. Depending on where your family came from, where they settled in America and what was cooking in the pot, you may have grown up calling it tomato sauce, Sunday sauce, Sunday gravy (or simply gravy).
At my house? Sunday sauce. Not gravy. And after a few hours simmering on the stove, your entire house is going to smell like Sunday at your nonna’s house (or in my case Noni's, since thats what my grandkids call me).
Noni’s Sunday Sauce
You will need:
* 2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
* 2 (28-ounce) cans tomato sauce
* About a half a tomato can of water
* Olive oil
* 8 garlic cloves, minced
* 2 tsp. sea salt
* 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
* 1 cup red wine
* A generous handful of fresh basil, plus more for serving
* Freshly grated Pecorino Romano
*Seared Italian sausage and baked meatballs (optional)
Let's make sauce
Before you begin cooking the garlic, open your cans of tomatoes and have them ready. This is important because garlic waits for no one!
Coat the bottom of a large, heavy pot with olive oil and warm it over medium-low heat.
Add the minced garlic, sea salt and red pepper flakes.
Gently sauté until the garlic is fragrant and just beginning to turn lightly golden.
Don't walk away here. You want toasted garlic, not burned garlic.
Immediately add the crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce.
Pour a little water into the empty tomato cans, swirl it around to capture all that tomato goodness and add about half a can of water to the pot.
Now add the red wine and fresh basil and give everything a good stir. Lower the heat, cover the pot and let the sauce simmer gently.
I let mine cook low and slow for most of the day whenever I can.
At minimum, give it several hours. Stir it occasionally and let time do the work. If you'd like to turn it into a heartier Sunday sauce, add seared Italian sausage and baked meatballs.
As they simmer in the pot, they add another wonderful layer of flavor to the sauce. When it's time to eat, toss the sauce with your favorite pasta and finish with plenty of freshly grated pecorino romano and torn fresh basil.
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A little Pasta School homework
We've spent the first several Pasta School lessons learning that fresh pasta doesn't have to be perfect. Sauce doesn't have to be complicated either. A handful of good ingredients, a heavy pot, low heat and a little patience can create something wonderful. And once you find your sauce, the recipe your family asks for, the one your friends want you to make, the one that becomes part of your own Sunday traditions, write it down.
Someday, someone in your family may take your recipe, change one little ingredient and make it their own. Grammy Filomena used sugar. I use wine. And the tradition continues.
Until next time—keep your hands in the dough and your heart in Italy!
Serves 8 to 10
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total cooking time minimum: At least 3 hours; 6 to 8 hours for the best flavor.
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