Tomato sauce - saving for a rainy day

Tomato sauce is so versatile and easy to make. Everybody should have a little stash ready for a quick and easy meal. This is how we make our basic tomato sauce with meat.

Ingredients
- 3 large 800g tins of chopped tomatoes
- 2 to 3 chopped onions
- a couple of chopped celery stalks
- a few cloves of chopped garlic
- tsp of dried basil (fresh is even better)
- some lamb and beef



It is important to brown your meat first. Pan frying the meat really enhances the flavour it gives to the sauce (this is a great opportunity to use up leftover steaks from the weekend bbq). We prefer to use cuts of meat with the bone on (e.g. lamb shoulder chops) as they give more flavour, but mince is fine as well.



Heat up some oil in a large pot and sweat the onions for five minutes. Add the garlic and basil and cook for another three minutes. Add in the celery and tomatoes and bring to a boil.

Remove the pot from the heat and purée roughly with a stick blender (it's nice to leave some chunky bits of tomato and onion). Add in your browned meat and put back onto the heat and bring back to the boil.

Now the important bit. Turn the stove down to a simmer and reduce the sauce for one to two hours, until the majority of liquid is gone. This not only concentrates the flavours, but also thickens the sauce so it sticks to pasta.

Remove the meat/steaks from the sauce and take out any bones. Chop up the meat however you like and mix it back into your sauce. Season with salt, pepper and a little sugar. The sugar is essential to balance out any excess acidity the tomatoes may have.



The sauce is finished. We put roughly 500ml into containers and freeze them. Each box is enough to serve a pasta meal for two. Of course you can omit the meat and make a base tomato sauce to use.

Top Tips
1) Brown your meat to develop those complex flavours
2) Take your time to properly simmer and reduce the sauce
3) Season with sugar to balance out the flavours

Sai