Ryan McKern

Notes:

We’ll be using fresh, roasted, peeled peppers. If you’re not used to doing it, you can peel a pepper by roasting it over or under heat and then rubbing off the charred skin. This is best accomplished over a gas stove burner, but an electric broiler will do just as well (make sure you do it on a cheap cookie sheet or oven pan that you don’t care about). When in doubt, google will show you the way.

The tilde (~) denotes approximate measurements. This shit isn’t chemistry. This yields about 6 cups, give or take a cup.

This is a spicy, flavorful sauce that we make when we want pasta or pizza. The portions scale linearly and intuitively, and it costs about $8.00 to make a freakishly large amount. It also reheats beautifully and stores easily. For the sake of variety, we’re omitting the “traditional” red pepper flakes and replacing them with a fresh hot chili pepper. Truthfully, if you omit the spicy altogether, you have a serviceable red sauce base of infinite flexibility.

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Ingredients:

~2 lbs of ground, peeled tomatoes

we used a 28oz [which is 1.75lbs] can from the “organic” section of a local market. In a pinch, any peeled, seeded tomatoes will do.

~2 to 3 tablespoons good olive oil

Extra virgin is fine and maybe even a little super tasty, but maybe a little more expensive than this calls for as the heat will sort of… “deflower” your oil a bit

~1 tablespoon good tomato paste

this comes in a tube, not a can, and costs more than $0.39

~6 large garlic cloves, peeled, crushed, and diced fine

1/2 medium-large red onion, diced fine

1 medium sized red bell pepper, peeled (see notes) and diced

1 smaller long green chili pepper, peeled and diced

2 medium-small carrots, peeled and diced fine

1 tablespoon fresh lemon thyme, minced

regular or dried will do in a pinch

1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) fresh basil, minced

dried will suffice but it’s not as good

1 or 2 bay leaves, whole

dried will do if they’re relatively fresh or you’re suddenly struck with a case of laziness

1/4 cup warm water

1/4 cup Shiraz wine

any equally fruity red wine that isn’t from a box will do, though you can omit this to taste… it just becomes “vegan diavolo sauce”

kosher salt

not table, not sea. kosher!

fresh ground pepper

no, really! I mean it! grind it fresh for this! we don’t use preground pepper!

Hardware:

1 large 3 quart pot or saucier, nonstick

1 10″ or 12″ skillet or fry pan

I use a chef’s pan. it just needs to be big enough, really 1 immersion or regular blender (optional)

Directions:

Start the tomatoes simmering and covered over low heat in a 2 or 3 quart non-stick sauce pot. A saucier would also be excellent (as long as it’s non-stick), but if you don’t have one it’s nothing to lose sleep over. Add the bay leaves and leave this alone while you focus on the rest of the sauce.

Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in a skillet or saute pan, and add the onions. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, reduce heat to low, and cover if you have a lid. Sweat the onions (but don’t brown or caramelize them) in the oil for about 3 or 4 minutes. You should just start to smell hot delicious onions.

Add the garlic and stir to combine. Let the garlic and onions sweat together for about a minute and add the peppers next, which should add some liquid to the pan. Stir to combine, and let things sweat for an additional minute. Add the carrots next, stirring again and letting the vegetables rest for about another 2 or 3 minutes so everything cooks together a little. Congratulations, you’ve made a sofritto. Drink some of the wine and celebrate your foray into all things Italian and Spanish.

While this cooks, add the tomato paste to the warm water and stir to combine. Add the wine to the mixture, and add the mixture to the pan with the vegetables.

Raise the heat to medium/medium-low and stir to combine the vegetables with the tomato/water/wine combination as well as to loosen the light fond you’ve undoubtedly developed. A whisk would be fine but a good wooden spoon works great. Bring the liquid to a very low simmer and let it cook for about 5 minutes or until the contents of the pan has reduced to a thick slurry of delicious (whichever comes first).

Add the vegetable medley to the simmering tomatoes (slowly so you don’t splatter yourself with hot tomato, which both stains and hurts) and scrape out anything remaining in the pan (garlic, small pieces of vegetable, olive oil, whatever) into the tomatoes. Stir to combine and simmer covered over low heat for at least an hour. Do you have a splatter screen? If so, this is an excellent application for it. Stir occasionally (5-10, no more than 20 minutes apart) to check consistency and prevent scalding at the bottom of the sauce.

After the first hour, the sauce is technically done and you’re really only reducing liquid or enhancing flavor. Fish out the bay leaves before you serve or blend this. If you’d like a less chunky tomato sauce just let the sauce cool for about half an hour uncovered and run it through a blender (or use an immersion blender) using pulses to liquify the solids. Return to the pot and bring back up to a simmer before serving.

If you’re going to freeze it, make sure you use an air-tight container, and use a piece of saran wrap placed right down along the top of the sauce to prevent any skinning as the olive oil separates and rises. It should keep refrigerated for about 5 days or frozen for about 3-4 weeks. If you wish to jar it, you’d follow typical jarring procedures, except that you’d add about two tablespoons of lemon juice and a teaspoon or two of sugar to bring the ph balance in line with something amicable for safe storage.