Pasta Sauce From Scratch

Hello! It time for the very first episode of Cooking With The Dave! And today we're going to make pasta sauce from scratch. Anybody who knows me knows that I love to make pasta for friends and family. I have all sorts of recipes that I'll share in future episodes. But today we are going for the basics with a simple marinara. Above you can see the ingredients we're going to use for this
recipe. Tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh garlic cloves, shallots, salt, pepper, olive oil, and some sundried tomatoes. Optional but included in this recipe are baby bella mushrooms, rosemary and fennel.

The tomatoes featured here are San Marzano tomatoes I grew myself. Theyre known to be the best of all the tomatoes for making pasta sauces. Others swear by Romas. But I'll let you in on a little secret. It doesn't matter what kind of tomatoes you use just so long as you have enough. For instance I made a pasta sauce from scratch last week using cherry tomatoes and I'd challenge anyone to tell the difference. The secret to a good sauce is not the tomatoes but the love you put into it.

First thing I do is score the tomatoes so that once boiled briefly the skins peel off easily. You dont have to boil them to peel the skin off you can simply throw them into the frying pan skins and all but I have a extra special step I use for the skins we'll get to in a bit.

Next I chop up the mushrooms. You can use any kind of mushrooms and I often do.
Or, you can forego the mushrooms all together. I like to use them however because they add texture and soak up the flavor of the sauce adding weight and heartiness to the end product. Up to you. What you'd like to do. However, I always get them going in the first stages of the sauce since well be cooking at low heat the entire time and i like my mushrooms to cook down and absorb all the flavours.

Here you can see the tomatoes in the pot of water heating up. Once they start boiling it only takes a minute or so for the skins to peel back so keep an eye on em!

Next I use tons of olive oil in the cooking pan. If you think you used too much. You didn't. Add more

I chop up the shallots next. They're going right in with the mushrooms at the same time. I want the shallots to cook down. You can chop them to whatever consistency you like. Here I went for medium courseness. It's all about the texture when you eat it. So your preference is whats right.

Ok tomatoes boiled for maybe a minute or two and are now drained and cooling down. Give em a moment to cool otherwise your fingers will be very, very mad at you. Don't toss the skins! Save them!

Peeled and thrown back in the cooking pan. Start heating them on medium low heat. With a slight lean towards medium. This will be the hotest stage of the cooking as the tomatoes disintegrate into a nice sauce. Mash them periodically with any utensils you like as if you were mashing grapes.

See all the saved skins i kept for the next bit.

Some people use tomato past from a tube. Not master chef Dave! I take the skins now soft and I mince them finely into a paste that tastes ten times better than any pre made tube stuff. This actually only takes a minute or two to process since the skins are soft now. So they paste right up quick smart.

Now that the tomatoes are succumbing to their olive oil jacuzzi I throw in the shallots and mushrooms. And I turn the heat down a smidge. Stir as you see fit and keep mashing the tomato into finer and finer goop

Next I chop whole fennel seed into a mince. I like to get that into the sauce as soon as possible so that the sharp flavour of the fennel softens and is distributed evenly through out the sauce. A quick tip to keep the fennel from flying all over the place as you chop it is to drop a few dabs of water on it first. Makes it so much easier and less messy. Throw the minced fennel into the sauce and stir it in right away.

Also not pictured is mince up a pinch of rosemary. Just a pinch! Rosemary is strong and can overpower the sauce. But a pinch minced and thrown in early will bring a full spectrum of flavour. Seriously...only a pinch!

Next step is to take sundried tomatoes and mince them too. Make sure you use the knife to scrape all the oils on the cutting board after you mince the sundried tomatoes and dump that in the sauce. For the amount to use. Its up to your personal preference. I use a handful or a dolup or two.

Sundried tomato mince in the sauce.

Chop up the fresh basil leaves. If you don't gave fresh basil dried basil is ok. But fresh is better. You are now about two thirds through the recipe. And about 40 minutes into the cooking. Throw the basil in. Let it cook off in the sauce and mix its aroma into the flavour.

Chopped garlic cloves are next. I like to mince it. I like to use fresh cloves and stay away from the pre diced in a jar stuff which tastes bitter and spoiled to me. Yes i use a lot of garlic. Yes you should too! Slap Upvote now if you approve of lots of garlic! What? Shakes head my ancestors are very disappointed you didn't Upvote for garlic.

A little out of sequence but basil in.

Basil stirred

Garlic in

Next is my secret super special technique. I will only share it if you keep it a secret. A splash of milk. I know it seems strange but you will thank me later. Do it! Put in the milk!

Stirring it all together and then let to simmer. The longer the simmer the better it will taste. The acidity of the tomatoes gets milder the longer the simmer and the flavour and sweetness only gets better. Its good to start the sauce early in the day and let it simmer for as long as you can. Recommended simmer time? I recommend infinity. If you have bay leaves, and I didn't this time around, now is the time to throw them in the sauce. Just make sure you remove them before serving. Now my ancestors are mad at me too, because I did not have any bay leaves. I'm sorry Nana! Slap Upvote now if you agree with my Nana's disappointment that I forgot the bay leaves.

While the sauce is doing its thing i mine as well go all the way and fry up some meatballs. You don't need to do this bit. But I likes meatballs.

And then I throw the meatballs into the sauce. Cause I can.

Final product. Delicious made from scratch pasta sauce on top of penne rigatoni.

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That's it for this first episode of Cooking With The Dave. Hope if you tried the recipe it turned out yummy. Bon appetit!

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All photos presented are by hidave