The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

A few years back, long before this blog ever came to life, I was reading Molly Wizenberg’s Orangette and came across this post on Marcella Hazan’s Tomato sauce with onion and butter. I’d been searching around for a new Tomato sauce recipe as I was slowly becoming bored of my usual one, there just seemed to be something missing. I was finding myself adding so many extraneous ingredients that the sauce was no longer just a basic tomato sauce and I felt I needed to get back to basics, the way I remembered the tomato sauce of my childhood.

I was fortunate enough to grow up with a mother and father who at the end of each summer would make a trip to the Okanagan Valley in Southern BC, a dry desert region know for some of this provinces best fruit orchards and vineyards, where they would buy the most amazing field tomatoes at the peek of their season. These were the best tomatoes I had every tasted and this was long before you would ever see an heirloom tomato in the produce section of even the fanciest Vancouver markets.  I remember on many of these trips to the Okanagan eating these tomatoes like apples with just a little bit of salt and pepper, now if that isn’t uncharacteristic child like behavior I don’t know what is. They were just that perfect that they were even able to challenge a 7 year olds idea of what constitutes a great snack. In all truth I think I was a bit of an odd child where food was concerned. I would pretty much eat anything. Not much has changed.

After the long drive back to Vancouver my parents would preserve any tomatoes we wouldn’t eat fresh, which my mother would use for her tomato sauce throughout the rest of the year. I absolutely adored her sauce. It was essentially just tomatoes, made completely out of this world of course by their quality, and the fact that they were completely ripened on the vine. They were so incredibly sweet that the characteristic acidity of tomatoes was almost indistinguishable. Even after being preserved with just a pinch of salt in their own juices, these tomatoes stood the test of time and become a much loved staple for our family. It was the way my mother prepared these tomatoes to create her sauce that really set it a part, but this is for another post.

In recent years, my parents have no longer been making the trip to get the tomatoes, at least not in canning quantities. After many years of nagging and insisting to bring this tradition back, met each time with resistance, I was forced to file away my favorite tomato sauce recipe because surely you can’t expect the same result from your average imported canned tomato. This just seems obvious to me.

So the search began. I was a big fan of San Marzano tomatoes, they were always my imported canned tomatoes of choice. I found though that every time I went in with the intention of making a basic tomatoes sauce something just fell a part for me. I would have this completely uncontrollable urge to add things like olives, capers or pancetta. I couldn’t resist it, because no mater how hard I tried nothing basic would compare to my mothers.

That is until Marcella Hazan’s recipe came into my life.

This recipe is like gold and could be used as currency.

It’s the sort of recipe that will completely shatter any and all ideas you have about the necessary steps to making a great tomato sauce. You may as well just throw all those ideas out the window, you know the ones that you accept as culinary truths including any base made from sauteed onions and garlic. Yes, that’s right you read that correctly. Oh and while you’re at it, you may as well forget about the Parmesan cheese too.

By now you’re probably thinking I’m insane because for a sauce to be this great, without garlic or Parmesan cheese, it would have to be magic sauce or something. If you thought that you would be right. This sauce is magic. There is no better way to describe what happens when butter, one whole onion and tomatoes are gentle simmered together over the better part of an hour. You will be shocked when you first taste it, because the usual acidity of tomatoes is replaced by the most delicate silky tomato sauce you have ever tasted and I guruntee that once you make this sauce it will become a staple in you house, just like it did in mine.

Thank-You butter you have done it again.

If you don’t believe me check out what all of these amazing food bloggers had to say about it.

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter – Recipe adapted from Marcella Hazan

1 28 ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes

5 tablespoons of unsalted butter

1 medium onion peeled and halved

salt to taste

Pour the tomatoes into a medium sized pot with the onion and butter. Over medium heat bring to a boil and then reduce to a slow simmer for 45 minutes or until you can see the butter float free from the tomato. Stir occasionally during this process and mash the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon as you go. Season with salt to taste. Toss with pasta and serve.