TUSCAN TOMATO PASTA SAUCE
Take advantage of this Tuscan tomato pasta sauce being surprisingly easy to make. The healthiness that you no longer want to look back again for canned puree tomato sauce…
This is the authentic Tuscan recipe called “pommarola” that I learned at my first Tuscany cooking class I took here in Lucca. Made with fresh tomatoes, basil, and parsley. It’s a basic tomato sauce suitable for Italian crostini or pasta.
Recipe:
Tuscan Tomato Pasta Sauce
- Preparation Time: 10 mins
- Cooking Time: 1 H
- Total Time: 1 H 10 mins
Ingredients: about 2 cups (500 ml) of sauce
- 2 lb (1kg) of fresh ripe red tomatoes
- 3 tbsp (45ml) extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 stalks of celery
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- bunch of parsley
- about 8 leaves of basil
- salt to taste
- Wash well all the tomatoes and halve them. Squeeze lightly and let the seeds come out. Put the halved tomatoes into a saucepan.
- Chop coarsely the carrot, celery, parsley and onion. Add the all into the saucepan.
- Begin to cook over a low flame for about an hour or so giving sometimes a stir.
- Once the tomatoes are cooked take another pan, assemble the food mill and pass through all the vegetables until a nice puree is formed. Discard the skins of the tomatoes and repeat if necessary.
- If the tomato sauce is too watery you can cook it dries more or until it meets your taste.
- Finally when the sauce is cooked you can add the salt, the basil leaves and the extra-virgin olive oil. Now it’s ready to season any kind of pasta or make a few Tuscan tomato crostini.
Easy and healthy as mother nature is...
What’s the difference between this and other types of Italian tomato sauces?
With this Tuscan recipe there’s no need to fry the vegetables known in Italy as soffritto. The onions, carrots, parsley and celery are sliced and cooked through together with the tomatoes. The extra-virgin olive oil is only added raw, once the sauce is cooked.
This Tuscan (pommarola) tomato pasta sauce is kept easy and healthy as mother nature.
The all yeary-round tomato sauce
In Tuscany it's the tomato pasta sauce made usually in summer when tomatoes are ripe and full of taste. Then you can frozen it too, and that’s what Miry my wife does when we make it. Her job is to preserve the sauce in aluminum containers, and then frozen for winter time. Just think, this sauce can be made all year-round.
Since it was winter when I took the cooking class, fresh tomatoes weren’t available then. So we did make use of canned whole tomatoes as chef suggested us. What this means is that you can of course make it with canned tomatoes as well.
The Tuscany cooking class I took from a school near my home in Lucca...
The pictures below are coming from the cooking school were I learned to make this fabulous Tuscan tomato pasta sauce from scratch.
The authentic recipe featured on this page is what I make every now and then when we are at home. It’s indeed our family preferred pasta sauce to season spaghetti or my homemade fresh pasta.
By the way that guy near the chef is me.
But use fresh tomatoes when available...
When it’s summer you’ll have a wide variety of fresh tomatoes available, so don’t compromise and buy fresh ones. I used some cluster tomatoes because they were what I had on hand then, but generic plum or San Marzano type are even better.
Never miss neither the basil nor parsley, because their role are more than just “supportive” in this recipe. Especially parsley that here makes quite a difference, and as you can see there’s a lot of it.
There is no need for you to diced or mince the vegetables. It's just enough to chop coarsely as they will cook with the tomatoes and after they will pass through the food mill.
This is the tool for the job our food...
Now, you’ll need one special tool though, and that’s a food mill because now we are going to make fresh pureed tomato. This is ours consisting in 3 main easy to assemble pieces. Made of stainless steal, it’s strong and helpful in the kitchen for other preparations, as smash potatoes and making pureed vegetables.
Have You noticed me? Yes I shoot myself too... :-)
Spin and spin with the food mill...
Now it's time to spin and spin so underneath the food mill put another pan and pass through all the vegetables that you have cooked until a nice puree is formed. Then discard from the food mill the skinny part of the tomatoes and repeat the process until the end.
Now you are ready to season any kind of pasta...
Almost any kind of pasta shape goes well with this Tuscan tomato (pommarola) pasta sauce. Try to make a few Italian crostini and you will be really delighted. Now you can even freeze the sauce for winter when it comes and you'll have your Italian pasta sauce ready.
