Homemade Pasta Sauce help..

[crazycanuck]

The other day I followed this recipe but took out the chillies http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/2168...-friendly.aspx

Mine turned out orange rather than the normal red colour and it didn't seem to have that saucy taste. It had a subtle zing but something needs to be added.

Any suggestions? I'd like to make it again with some additions to see the difference.

Ta
C

[chryss]

Onion, preferably red.

My standard super-cheap pasta sauce recipe is:

- chop onion(s), garlic
- heat olive oil in a pan
- gently sautee onions until translucent, add garlic, sautee a bit more
- dump a can of tomatoes (or fresh, peeled tomatoes, but you get good quality cans nowadays)
- add dried (or fresh) tyme, herbes de provence, whatever seasoning you like, salt, black pepper (plus crushed chili)
- let simmer until great, the longer the better -- it's kinda edible after 20min, but if you can let it simmer for 45, it's better.

If you add ground beef, carrots, other vegetables it might be necessary to let simmer for 1.5h. Some vegetables need to be added late (peas...).

[Susan]

Yes, it needs onion.
Roast 1 onion, (maybe add a little bit of rosemary) and then add the tomatoes, let them get soft and then blend everything together like in the recipe.

If you use fresh tomatoes like in the recipe, it will be more orange than red. If you want it red and a little bit thicker, you can add tomato-paste (or use canned tomatoes). Also, you can use some sweet pepper if you don't like it hot.

[Melalvai]

I like roasting the tomatoes first and throwing them (skins & all) in the food processor.

[crazycanuck]

Lovely, tanks!! I shall try it again this week & report back.

[OakLeaf]

+1 on the onion - but also, I've never made a semi-raw sauce like that. Long slow cooking brings out a lot of flavor in the tomatoes ... as well as evaporating a lot of the water in them. You might do like Chryss and use drained jarred tomatoes.

Depending on how sweet the tomatoes are, most pasta sauce recipes (even old recipes that would've assumed you could get good ripe tomatoes) call for a teaspoon or so of sugar. You don't really taste it as sugar, but it brings out a lot of flavor.

A pinch of hot red pepper can bring out a lot of flavor too, even if you don't add enough that it tastes hot.