Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Father's Tomato Sauce:


      My father has always been a great source of inspiration to me when it comes to cooking (his resume actually states "kitchen magician"). He also is the main supporter of my cooking habit and will continually show up at my door step with thoughtful things like, a pound of flour, cornstarch, or even fresh grown produce raised right in his own yard! Recently I was gifted a box filled with heirloom tomatoes and pimento peppers. I knew immediately that the first recipe I would try with the veggies would be a home made vegetable sauce for layering over linguini pasta. In cooking, there is something called "the five mother sauces." Those sauces include: Bechamel, Veloute, Espagnole, Hollandaise, and Vinagrette. The sauce in this recipe would be traditionally considered an "Espagnole," but in honor of my my dad (and all that he does for me) I think it should be considered a father's sauce instead! And here it is folks, a healthy sauce recipe sure to help you get your daily dose of vegetables:


Magic Ingredients:
3 large tomatoes, diced
1 Pimento pepper, diced
1 butter ball potato, diced
1 carrot, diced
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1/2 a large onion, diced
1 cup vegetable stock
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
1 tbsp hot sauce
1 tsp dried oregano
1tsp dried basil
(For the full dish, add 4 oz. of pasta and a dozen basil leaves)


Let's get started:
1: In a medium sized pot, saute onions in olive oil and a pinch of salt on medium heat. When the onions are almost softened, add in the minced garlic:


2: Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium and simmer until all ingredients have softened and the liquid has reduced by half:


3: Blend ingredients together until desired texture is reached. I used an emersion blender but you could certainly synthesize the mixture in a standard blender:


4: Serve the sauce over Linguini pasta with a generous garnish of freshly grated parmesan cheese, cracked black pepper, and a basil chiffonade:


This recipe makes enough sauce for 
servings and reheats very well. ended 
up having dinner with my room mate 
(who also took all the photos for this post). 
This was her bowl at the end of the meal:




Yours,
Nico

2 comments:

  1. Looks so delish! Did not know your dad inspired your cooking obsession, but after seeing this pasta sauce I can definitely see why he is a cooking magician!

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  2. yeah my father was always the cook of the family! im watching "Giada at Home" right now (the cooking show) my dad was kind enough to purchase the DVD for me! 12 video recipes for $10!

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