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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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello my name is Theo Randall from Theo Randall at the Intercontinental and I'm going to show
00:03you how to make a tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes and tomato passata.
00:11So first of all we're going to add some olive oil and some garlic. So when you get garlic it's always
00:15good to squeeze the garlic to see how fresh it is. Now if the garlic's very very firm that means
00:20it's very very fresh. Sometimes you can pick up garlic bulbs and they almost crack and they're
00:25soft inside that means the garlic's old so it'll have a very unpleasant taste. This is lovely fresh
00:29garlic so it's nice and firm. So we just get a couple of cloves of garlic. Now Italian food they
00:34don't use that much garlic it's always it's a bit of a myth that you know all this Mediterranean
00:39food has lots of garlic. It does have some but not masses so it's important to get just the right
00:44quantity otherwise it's just going to be too strong. So we're just going to peel the garlic
00:49clove and I'm going to slice it very very thinly. Okay I'm just going to cut down the middle and
00:54then make sure there's no sprout in the middle. There is a little bit of a sprout so we'll take
00:57that out and then just slice the garlic. We'll do one clove probably enough and then we'll just
01:04slice the garlic nice and thinly. You can do this on a on a on a slicer on a mandolin if you've got
01:10a small truffle mandolin or just best thing is a small knife like this a small paring knife. So nice
01:17thin slices of garlic then we're going to add some good olive oil. So nice flavour some olive oil.
01:22If you use a cheap olive oil it won't have that same flavour. Obviously you don't use the best
01:26oil you've got but a nice extra virgin olive oil is great. So a good two to three tablespoons of
01:33olive oil. Sounds like a lot but it's basically the oil is part of the sauce. It's not just the
01:38cooking medium. So we put the garlic in and then we're just going to soften the garlic. We don't
01:42want to get any colour. Don't put any colour on the garlic because if you add colour to the garlic
01:46what's going to happen is going to have this sort of nutty brown taste and everything will taste
01:50of this sort of slightly overcooked garlic which is not very nice. Just let that soften. It takes
01:55about less than a minute. Then get some basil leaves. Now I'm going to use some fresh at the end and some
02:00now and the thing is to get that oil tasting really nice. So I'm just going to rip up the bits of basil.
02:06I always think basil is so much nicer ripped up than chopped up shredded. It's just got
02:10just tastes better when it's just sort of ripped. And then just fry that basil and the garlic
02:16together and then at this stage I'm just going to take the pan off so the garlic and the basil infuses
02:22and then I'm going to get some tomatoes. So these are just vine tomatoes and we're just going to
02:26take out the core of the tomato and you're just going to cut them in half and we're going to pop
02:31them into this food blender. The skins have got masses of flavour. I'm just going to pop this in at a very
02:36high speed. It's just going to turn all this tomato into a pulp and so you get all that flavour from
02:40the skin as well. So rather than blanching tomatoes and peeling them you can actually just go straight
02:45into the machine and make a tomato paste almost but trying to get as ripe tomatoes as possible.
02:51The riper the better. And then pop that in, turn it on.
03:08And it seems very very wet but 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. Once it comes back up to heat we'll add the
03:17chopped tomato just as simple as that and then just give a little stir so all those ingredients
03:21combine and we're just going to leave that to reduce just for like one minute and then we get
03:27a jar of tomato passata and then just pop that in. In it goes. So that's one whole jar and then
03:34we're just going to give that a stir. I'm going to cook this slowly for about 20 minutes. That whole
03:39quantity the fresh tomato and the tomato passata reduces by half and it'll give you a really lovely
03:45sweet tasting tomato sauce. So turn the heat down a bit and just let it simmer gently for 20 minutes.
03:53So the tomato sauce has reduced by half and it's become much thicker. The only problem
03:58making tomato sauce is it does splash everywhere and I've managed to keep myself clean which is
04:02unusual. It's important that the sauce has got a nice sort of thickness to it without being too
04:08thick. Now the more you cook it the sweeter it becomes and the more intense the flavour
04:12but this sort of consistency is just perfect for cooking it with some fresh pasta. Just get the
04:19basil and just rip the basil in and then we're going to add a little dash of
04:23nice olive oil again. So a good dash of olive oil, black pepper
04:32and then a little bit of salt. Just taste it and say a little bit of salt
04:36and then just give that a nice stir. So all that lovely oil and the tomatoes, the garlic and the
04:43basil is all nicely mixed together and that is ready to add to some delicious pasta.
04:52Okay so I've just cooked some tagliatelle and tossed the tomato sauce
04:56with the tagliatelle and then we're just going to check the seasoning.
05:00A bit of pepper, a little bit of salt and a nice dash of olive oil
05:11and just give that a little toss. All the pasta is combined with the sauce
05:17and just put a very beautiful simple tagliatelle.
05:23A little bit more of that sauce on top and just finish with a few fresh leaves of basil,
05:36a bit more black pepper
05:39and a drizzle of really good olive oil.
05:42There you have a delicious tagliatelle with fresh tomato sauce.