Roasted tomato and garlic sauce

You know you're becoming a local somewhere by the actions of the shopkeepers.  I was off work last week (between jobs, not sciving!) and went into the village one morning.  The manager of the wine shop waved at me through the window.  The butcher didn't have any change and asked me to pop back in later in the week to pay for the pork chops I was buying.  And then I went into the greengrocers...

My lovely greengrocer - Angie - was sorting through a box of English tomatoes, all about the size of golf balls and very sweet looking.  When I asked what she was going to do with the over-ripe and split ones, she offered them to me.  All six pounds of them for free... I couldn't really say no, could I?

So my afternoon of gardening (post to follow...) was interrupted by making a huge quantity of roasted tomato and garlic sauce.  This really is the best way of dealing with a glut of toms - particularly if they are going over a bit.  You can thin it all down a bit with a bit of stock to make a delicious soup or keep it a touch thicker and freeze it in pasta-sauce-sized portions.

Roasted tomato and garlic sauce
(Makes around 2 litres)

6lbs tomatoes, washed and stalks removed
1 whole head of garlic halved through the equator
A sprinkle of Maldon salt
A good splash of olive oil

Preheat the oven to around 150°C. Put the tomatoes in a large roasting pan - try to keep them no more than two deep. Tuck in the halves of garlic - but don't bury them completely.  Sprinkle with salt, drizzle with oil and whack the lot in the oven for 45minutes to an hour.

Now just rub the squishy tomatoes through a fine seive making sure you squeeze out every molocule of flavour.  The tomatoes will have thrown off some water in the cooking process - although it looks watery, it still has good flavour, so use some of this to 'wash' the pulp in the seive.  Don't use all of it unless you want your sauce a little thin.
Push the halved cloves of roasted garlic out of their papery skins and squish to a paste with the back of a knife - stir this pulp into the tomato sauce.  Season to taste.

You can add basil if you like, but personally I prefer to do this just before serving - it certainly isn't worth it if you're going to freeze the sauce, much better to have fresh basil in the sauce moments before you use it.

In the picture below, I added some fried lardons of bacon, some basil and topped it off with grated parmesan... 

tags: pasta  

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