Like all good gardeners, I look after my plants, and inevitably, we end up with a glut. Gluts are great things of course, otherwise we wouldn’t have developed innovative ways of preserving our food. Canning, bottling, chutneys, jams, sauces, they’re all ways of storing our gluts.
Currently here in the cool-cool climate of the central west we’re finally experiencing some warm weather and the tomatoes are everywhere.
Here is a simple, simple, simple way of making a tomato sauce that requires no stirring, no peeling and very little skill for great reward; baked tomato sauce.
Used by itself on pasta and it will blow your socks off. Used on pizza it screams Italia.
INGREDIENTS:
It depends on how many kilos of tomatoes you’re roasting as to how much of each other ingredient you’re using. For two kilos of tomato I used six cloves of garlic, but then I love garlic.
- Tomatoes (Of course)
- Olive oil
- Garlic (not Chinese)
- Balsamic vinegar
- Fresh basil
- Salt and pepper
METHOD:
Put the oven on high at first, real high, around 250c.
Cut the tomatoes horizontally. That is so that they look like they do in the picture above, not along the core, across it.
Chop up the garlic and sprinkle it all over your tomatoes, and do the same with your basil.
Lug some olive oil over the tomatoes and sprinkle some balsamic vinegar over it all also.
Grind some salt and pepper over it and you’re ready to roll.
Bung it into the hot oven and immediately turn it down to about 150c. Pour yourself a wine and let it roast slowly for about 60 – 90 minutes. You don’t want them looking like one of those dried tomatoes from the 1980’s, you just want them a bit browned and gooey.
Now stir them around in all the juices, vinegar and oil, ladle them into the blender or processor and give them a whirl.
If you want a fine sauce go flat out, if you want something coarser, pulse process until it’s to your liking.
Now freeze it in bags or containers, or bottle it. Then go raid your neighbours patch and make some more because it’s damn addictive.
VARIATIONS:
Add whole cloves of garlic and whole chillies when roasting. Add anchovies for that rich meaty goodness. Add different herbs like oregano or thyme. Add some cinnamon for a middle eastern variation. Gluts are a wonderful thing.