Fresh tomato pasta sauce is made from just four ingredients - and is absolutely delicious. This simple recipe is from celebrity chef and Italian cooking expert Theo Randall.
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00:00 Hello, my name is Theo Randall from Theo Randall at the Intercontinental and I'm going to show you how to make a tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes and tomato passata.
00:08 So first of all we're going to add some olive oil and some garlic. So when you get garlic it's always good to squeeze the garlic to see how fresh it is.
00:18 Now if the garlic is very, very firm that means it's very, very fresh. Sometimes you can pick up garlic bulbs and they almost crack and they're soft inside.
00:26 That means the garlic's old so it'll have a very unpleasant taste. This is lovely fresh garlic so it's nice and firm.
00:32 So we just get a couple of cloves of garlic. Now in Italian food they don't use that much garlic. It's always a bit of a myth that all this Mediterranean food has lots of garlic.
00:41 It does have some but not masses so it's important to get just the right quantity otherwise it's just going to be too strong.
00:47 So we're just going to peel the garlic clove and then we're going to slice it very, very thinly. I'm just going to cut down the middle and then make sure there's no sprout in the middle.
00:56 There is a little bit of a sprout so we'll take that out. And then just slice the garlic. We'll do one clove will probably be enough.
01:03 And then we'll just slice the garlic nice and thinly. You can do this on a slicer, on a mandolin if you've got a small truffle mandolin or just best thing is a small knife like this, a small paring knife.
01:16 So nice thin slices of garlic. Then we're going to add some good olive oil. So nice flavoursome olive oil.
01:22 If you use a cheap olive oil it won't have that same flavour. Obviously you don't use the best oil you've got but a nice extra virgin olive oil is great.
01:30 So a good two to three tablespoons of olive oil. Sounds like a lot but it's basically the oil is part of the sauce. It's not just the cooking medium.
01:39 So we put the garlic in and then we're just going to soften the garlic. We don't want to get any colour.
01:43 Don't put any colour on the garlic because if you add colour to the garlic what's going to happen is it's going to have this sort of nutty brown taste and everything will taste of this sort of slightly overcooked garlic which is not very nice.
01:54 Just let that soften. It takes about less than a minute. Then get some basil leaves. Now I'm going to use some fresh at the end and some now.
02:01 And the thing is to get that oil tasting really nice. So I'm just going to rip up the bits of basil.
02:06 I always think basil is so much nicer ripped up than chopped up and shredded. It just tastes better when it's just sort of ripped.
02:13 And then just fry that basil and the garlic together. And then at this stage I'm just going to take the pan off so the garlic and the basil infuses.
02:22 And then I'm going to get some tomatoes. So these are just vine tomatoes. And we're just going to take out the core of the tomato.
02:29 And we're just going to cut them in half and we're going to pop them into this food blender.
02:33 The skins have got masses of flavour. I'm just going to pop this in at a very high speed.
02:37 It's just going to turn all this tomato into a pulp and so you're going to get all that flavour from the skin as well.
02:41 So rather than blanching tomatoes and peeling them, you can actually just go straight into the machine and make a tomato paste almost.
02:49 But try and get as ripe tomatoes as possible. The riper the better. And then pop that in.
02:55 Turn it on.
03:08 And it seems very, very wet but that's fine because we're going to reduce it down.
03:12 And then we're just going to turn the heat up a bit. Once it comes back up to heat, we'll add the chopped tomato.
03:18 Just that simple as that. And then we'll just give it a little stir so all those ingredients combine.
03:22 And we're just going to leave that to reduce just for like one minute.
03:26 And then we get a jar of tomato passata and then just pop that in.
03:30 In it goes. So that's one whole jar.
03:34 And then we're just going to give that a stir. And we're going to cook this slowly for about 20 minutes.
03:39 That whole quantity, the fresh tomato and the tomato passata, reduces by half and it'll give you a really lovely sweet tasting tomato sauce.
03:47 So turn the heat down a bit and just let it simmer gently for 20 minutes.
03:54 So the tomato sauce has reduced by half and it's become much thicker.
03:58 And the only problem with making tomato sauce is it does splash everywhere and I've managed to keep myself clean which is unusual.
04:03 It's important that the sauce has got a nice sort of thickness to it without being too thick.
04:08 Now the more you cook it, the sweeter it becomes and the more intense the flavour.
04:12 But this sort of consistency is just perfect for cooking it with some fresh passata.
04:18 Just get the basil and just rip the basil in.
04:21 And then we're going to add a little dash of nice olive oil again.
04:25 So a good dash of olive oil.
04:29 Black pepper.
04:32 And then a little bit of salt. Just taste it and say a little bit of salt.
04:37 And then just give that a nice stir.
04:40 And so all that lovely oil and the tomatoes, the garlic and the basil is all nicely mixed together.
04:47 And that is ready to add to some delicious pasta.
04:52 Okay, so I've just cooked some tagliatelle and tossed the tomato sauce with the tagliatelle.
04:58 And then we're just going to check the seasoning.
05:02 A bit of pepper.
05:05 A little bit of salt.
05:08 And a nice dash of olive oil.
05:11 And just give that a little toss so all the pasta is combined with the sauce.
05:17 And just put a very beautiful, simple tagliatelle.
05:28 A little bit more of that sauce on top.
05:31 And just finish with a few fresh leaves of basil.
05:36 A bit more black pepper.
05:40 And a drizzle of really good olive oil.
05:43 And there you have a delicious tagliatelle with fresh tomato sauce.
05:48 [Closing music]