Fresh tomato pasta sauce is made from just four ingredients - and is absolutely delicious. This simple recipe is from celebrity chef and Italian cooking expert Theo Randall.
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00:00Hello, my name is Theo Randall from Theo Randall at the Intercontinental.
00:03I'm going to show you how to make a tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes and tomato passato.
00:11So first of all, we're going to add some olive oil and some garlic.
00:14So when you get garlic, it's always good to squeeze the garlic to see how fresh it is.
00:18Now if the garlic's very, very firm, that means it's very, very fresh.
00:21Sometimes you can pick up garlic bulbs and they almost crack and they're soft inside.
00:26That means the garlic's old, so it'll have a very unpleasant taste.
00:28This is lovely fresh garlic, so it's nice and firm.
00:31So we just get a couple of cloves of garlic.
00:33Now Italian food, they don't use that much garlic.
00:35It's always, it's a bit of a myth that, you know, all this Mediterranean food has lots of garlic.
00:40It does have some, but not masses.
00:42So it's important to get just the right quantity, otherwise it's just going to be too strong.
00:47So we're just going to peel the garlic clove and then we're going to slice it very, very thinly.
00:52Okay, I'm just going to cut down the middle and then make sure there's no sprout in the middle.
00:56There is a little bit of a sprout, so we'll take that out.
00:58And then just slice the garlic.
01:01We'll do one clove, probably enough.
01:03And then we'll just slice the garlic nice and thinly.
01:07You can do this on a slicer, on a mandolin if you've got a small truffle mandolin.
01:12Or just best thing is a small knife like this, a small paring knife.
01:17So nice thin slices of garlic.
01:19Then we're going to add some good olive oil.
01:20So nice, flavoursome olive oil.
01:22If you use a cheap olive oil, it won't have that same flavour.
01:25Obviously you don't use the best oil you've got, but a nice extra virgin olive oil is great.
01:30So a good two to three tablespoons of olive oil.
01:34Sounds like a lot, but it's basically the oil is part of the sauce.
01:38It's not just the cooking medium.
01:39So we put the garlic in, and then we're just going to soften the garlic.
01:42We don't want to get any colour.
01:43Don't put any colour on the garlic, because if you add colour to the garlic,
01:46what's going to happen is you're going to have this sort of nutty brown taste,
01:49and everything will taste of this sort of slightly overcooked garlic, which is not very nice.
01:54Just let that soften.
01:55It takes about less than a minute.
01:57Then get some basil leaves.
01:58Now I'm going to use some fresh at the end and some now.
02:01And the thing is to get that oil tasting really nice.
02:03So I'm just going to rip up the bits of basil.
02:07I always think basil is so much nicer ripped up than chopped up or shredded.
02:10It's just got, it just tastes better when it's just sort of ripped.
02:13And then just fry that basil and the garlic together.
02:17And then at this stage, I'm just going to take the pan off,
02:20so the garlic and the basil infuses.
02:22And then I'm going to get some tomatoes.
02:24So these are just vine tomatoes.
02:25And we're just going to take out the core of the tomato,
02:28and we're just going to cut them in half.
02:30And we're going to pop them into this food blender.
02:33The skins have got masses of flavor.
02:35I'm just going to pop this in at a very high speed.
02:37It's just going to turn all this tomato into a pulp,
02:39and so you're going to get all that flavor from the skin as well.
02:41So rather than blanching tomatoes and peeling them,
02:43you can actually just go straight into the machine
02:46and make a tomato paste almost.
02:49But try and get as ripe tomatoes as possible.
02:51The riper, the better.
02:53And then pop that in.
02:54Turn it on.
03:00And it seems very, very wet,
03:09but that's fine because we're going to reduce it down.
03:12And then we're just going to turn the heat up a bit.
03:14Once it comes back up to heat,
03:16we'll add the chopped tomato,
03:18just as simple as that.
03:19And then we'll just give a little stir
03:20so all those ingredients combine.
03:22And we're just going to leave that to reduce
03:24just for like one minute.
03:26And then we get a jar of tomato passata
03:29and then just pop that in.
03:30In it goes.
03:32So that's one whole jar.
03:33And then we're just going to give that a stir.
03:36I'm going to cook this slowly for about 20 minutes.
03:39That whole quantity,
03:40the fresh tomato and the tomato passata,
03:42reduces by half
03:43and it'll give you a really lovely, sweet-tasting tomato sauce.
03:47Now turn the heat down a bit
03:48and just let it simmer gently for 20 minutes.
03:53So the tomato sauce is reduced by half
03:55and it's got, they've become much thicker.
03:58And the only problem with making tomato sauce
03:59is it does splash everywhere
04:00and I've managed to keep myself clean, which is unusual.
04:03It's important that the sauce has got a nice
04:05sort of thickness to it without being too thick.
04:08Now the more you cook it,
04:10the sweeter it becomes
04:11and the more intense the flavour.
04:12But this sort of consistency is just perfect
04:14for cooking it with some fresh pasta.
04:17So just get the basil
04:19and just rip the basil in
04:21and then we're going to add
04:22a little dash of nice olive oil again.
04:25So a good dash of olive oil.
04:28Black pepper.
04:31And then a little bit of salt.
04:34Just taste it.
04:35A little bit of salt.
04:37And then just give that a nice stir.
04:40And so all that lovely oil
04:42and the tomatoes,
04:43the garlic and the basil
04:44is all nicely mixed together.
04:46And that is ready
04:48to add to some delicious pasta.
04:52Okay, so I've just cooked some talitelli
04:53and tossed the tomato sauce
04:56with the talitelli.
04:58And then we're just going to
04:58check the seasoning.
05:00A little bit of pepper.
05:05A little bit of salt.
05:07And a nice stash of olive oil.
05:11And just give that a little toss.
05:13All the pastas combined with the sauce.
05:16And we'll just put
05:17a very beautiful, simple talitelli.
05:23A little bit more of that sauce on top.
05:30And just finish with a few fresh leaves of basil.
05:36A bit more black pepper.
05:39And a drizzle
05:40of really good olive oil.
05:43And there you have a delicious talitelli
05:44with fresh tomato sauce.