Salsa alla Marinara

Tomato, garlic and oregano cooked twenty minutes, with no onion in it.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 800 g tinned San Marzano tomatoes
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• a few basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. THIS IS THE NEAPOLITAN SAUCE, not the long-simmered Italian-American one of the same name. It takes twenty minutes, has NO ONION, no carrot, no wine and no sugar.
2. Warm the oil with the garlic over a LOW heat until the slices are barely blond. Browned garlic turns the whole thing bitter and there is nowhere for it to hide in a sauce this plain.
3. Crush the tomatoes by hand rather than blending them. A blender aerates them and turns the sauce orange and frothy.
4. Add them with the salt and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes. It should reduce by about a quarter and darken.
5. ADD THE OREGANO IN THE LAST TWO MINUTES. Dried oregano simmered for twenty goes dusty and bitter; added late it stays sharp, and it is the herb that makes this marinara rather than a plain pomodoro.
6. Tear the basil in off the heat.
7. It is a sauce for pizza, for spaghetti, or spooned over fried fish, and it keeps four days.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes