Red Sauce

I realized I've been blogging for a week and have not done a single cooking or food post. This is crazy because I LOVE food. Making it, eating it, even looking at it. So I figured my inaugural food post would be my recipe for my favorite food: spaghetti and marinara or red sauce. There is a restaurant in my hometown called Rocco's. It's this amazing red-checkered tablecloth, mom and pop Italian restaurant. It's always the first restaurant I want to go to when I'm home, and it has the BEST marinara sauce ever. Since I first started cooking I've been trying to make my own awesome red sauce and after years of tweaking and effort, I think I've finally done ok, but like all of my recipes, it's a work in progress.

Ingredients:
1 28 oz. can San Marzano pureed tomatoes
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup wine (red or white, your choice)
Olive oil
Crushed red pepper
Salt and pepper
Flat-leaf Italian parsley, chopped
Sugar (sometimes)*
Parmesan cheese
Spaghetti (or linguine fini, angel hair or another long-cut pasta)

Directions:
1. Chop your onion and garlic. In a saucepan, heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes.

2. Add crushed red pepper to taste and saute a little longer. I like it spicy, so I am pretty generous.

3. Add the red wine and bring to a simmer. Simmer for a few minutes to let the wine-onion mixture reduce.

4. Once the wine has reduced, add the San Marzano tomatoes. A quick note about tomato choice. It is crucial. I've used various brands of canned tomatoes from the grocery store and I'm telling you, the San Marzano brand of San Marzano tomatoes that is stocked at Whole Foods is THE best brand of canned tomatoes out there. I prefer my sauce fairly smooth, so I use the pureed tomatoes for my marinara, but I've also used their whole, crushed and diced and they are all amazing. Worth every penny.

(Sorry, I haven't mastered pouring and iPhone picture taking at the same time yet.)

5. Season with salt and pepper. Be careful not to oversalt because you will be adding salty pasta water later and can always add more to taste at the end. Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce the heat to low to keep it at a low simmer. Cover and simmer for at least 30 minutes, but I tend to think the longer the sauce simmers the better, it makes the flavors richer. 

6. While the sauce simmers, bring a large pot of very salty water to a boil. It should be so salty that it tastes like the ocean.  When the water is at a boil, add the pasta and cook according to package directions. You know how most pasta boxes say a range of time like 11-12 minutes? I recommend cooking at the low end of that range, maybe even a minute less because the sauce will be hot when you add it and it will keep cooking a bit and you want it al dente, not mushy. Also, before you drain your pasta, save 1/2 cup of that salty starchy pasta water.

7. Also while the sauce simmers, chop your parsley. (Gratuitous instruction just so I could insert the picture.)

8. At this point, add the pasta water to the simmering sauce. **If you really want your sauce to be like a restaurant's sauce, or at least like Rocco's sauce, you can puree it at this point with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender. I did not want to deal with that last night, so I just enjoyed it as is. I would recommend blending before adding all the pasta water ahead could make the sauce too thin once it's blended.** Ladle a few ladlefuls (Is that a thing? Ladleful? Spell check says no.)of sauce onto the drained pasta and combine, reserving some of the sauce for topping the individual portions. Divide the pasta among your serving dishes, ladle a little bit of sauce over the portions, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and then with the chopped parsley. Then eat until your tummy hurts.

Seriously try to look at that and not want to shovel it in your face. Sorry to be unladylike but I had just worked out and that's exactly what I did and I'm not even ashamed. And please don't judge me for my overzealous use of parmesan cheese. I couldn't help myself.

At least I didn't lick the bowl. Scrape it with my fork so I got as much sauce as possible? Yes. But I did not resort to licking.

*One final note about the sugar: Your use of sugar should depend entirely on how sweet your wine and your onions are, so basically it's a matter of taste. Taste the sauce before you add the salt and pepper, if it has too much of an acidic bite to it, add no more than a teaspoon of sugar, taste and add a bit more if needed. With the red table wine I used today and a pretty sweet yellow onion, I didn't even add sugar in this batch. It's different every time.