I thought I’d follow up the post about food mills with a simple recipe that uses one. It’s tomato sauce, a good, basic sauce for any number of dishes. I use it with anything from the fast, like penne and tomato sauce showered with Parmesan shavings, to the slow, such as a hunk of pork shoulder braised until tender, the pork fat mellowing the tang of tomato.
Plus, this is the last time this year that we’ll have an inexpensive supply of deep-red, ripe tomatoes. I’d like to make enough to freeze. But I never manage to make enough to last me into winter.
To make tomato sauce with a food mill:
Stem and coarsely chop 2 pounds of tomatoes. Put at food mill fitted with a coarse disk over a bowl or pot and mill the tomatoes. Most of the skins and seeds will be stuck in the blades of the food mill, so you’ll be left with a lot of pulp and juice– 3 cups or so. In a pot, preferably one that’s not very wide, gently heat 1/4 cup olive oil and 2 smashed garlic cloves. When the garlic is aromatic, add the tomatoes and 1 peeled carrot. A whole carrot adds sweetness to the tomato sauce, mellowing its acidity. I also like to add a pinch of dried chile flakes for heat. Add a sprig or two of basil and a few pinches of salt and then simmer gently until the juices have reduced and the sauce lightly coats the back of a spoon, 45 minutes or so. Before you use the sauce, remove the carrot and the basil. Eat the carrot if you’d like, then add fresh basil. You will have about 2 cups of sauce.
That’s it. Use it any which way you’d use tomato sauce or canned tomatoes. It’s easy enough to make, even when you’d distracted, as I have been lately.
My distractions are completely justified, I think. I’m cooking with a new furry friend by my feet. Meet Henry, a cardigan welsh corgi puppy. This is his favorite spot in the kitchen.
