Have you ever tried to make a tomato sauce so rich in colour it’s on the Ferrari end of the red continuum? I had and seldom came close. Until I interviewed chef Peter Tempelhoff.
In passing he mentioned his take on a pomodoro (tomato) sauce he learned when working in London, at Giorgio Locatelli’s restaurant, Zafferano, and since Giorgio’s philosophy resonates, I gave it a try.
For the very first time my tomato sauce was a rich red. And it came down, not to any special ingredient, but to Peter’s description of how to make it:
Take a large tin of the best Italian tomatoes you can buy, 3 large onions, a cup of extra virgin oil, 5 black olives and a branch of basil… plus salt. Just treat them all with love and never blend it – always use a mouli or a sieve to push it through – blending turns it orange from air being whisked into it.
It read more like caring advice than a recipe and contained in that short message were two sauce-changing moments in producing something red and sweet:
Red. Pass the cooked sauce through a mouli. (I’d been using a food processor or a stick blender.)
Sweet. For me ‘treat them all with love’ meant a low and slow cooking of onions. The sweetness this creates counters any tomato acidity.
As a former card-carrying member of The Magic Circle, Brandon would call these two moves the moment when the trick actually happens.
Keeping it red relies on using the right tool for the job: the mouli. Or least staying away from my handheld blender. (If you don’t yet know the mouli, take a look at the opening video clip.)
And because there are only three main ingredients (tomatoes, onions, olive oil), it is also the perfect expression of our philosophy: it’s not only what you add, but what you do that’s important.
By making this sauce, you will see the difference the right tool can make and learn how to use gently cooked onions as a tool in your cooking.
For the full tomato sauce method, click the link below.
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