Jack is Cooking the Best Damn Pasta Sauce You Ever Ate

Well Hello Internet!

over the weekend i made this super delicious pasta sauce.  i have to say it is probably the best damn pasta sauce i ever ate.  and i say that because i really don't like plain tomato sauce all that much.  i don't know why but i find that people spice it wrong and over cook it.  i don't know why they do this, because tomatoes are awesome!  why all the spices and all the cooking for hours and hours and hours until there is nothing left but tomato paste?!

first off, i have to say that this is most definitely not my recipe.  i saw this made on Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations the other day in his episode about techniques.  i did some tweaking here and there but the recipe is essentially from Chef Scott Conant from Scarpetta restaurant.

Heres what you'll need:

5 ripe plum tomatoes

4 cloves of garlic

an onion

a bunch of fresh basil

1 cup of olive oil

pasta

butter

cheese

First i blanched the tomatoes in hot water for like 15 seconds, and removed them immediately.  (i saved the water so i didn't have to boil more, to cook the pasta in)

after the tomatoes where blanched i skinned them, cut them open and squeezed out the insides into a bowl (save this bowl for if the sauce gets too dry.  then you can add this juicy pulp into the sauce).  i put the remaining part of the tomatoes into a pot with 1 quarter of the olive oil (1/4 cup) and i mashed them with a potato masher until they were pulpy.  i let this simmer for like 30 minutes until it became pretty saucy (mashing from time to time)

in another pot, i put the rest of the olive oil, all the garlic (whole cloves) the onion (chopped up) and maybe 10 fresh leaves of basil, and i let this simmer in the oil for the entire time that the tomato sauce cooked.

when both of these things were done i took a strainer and i strained the oil into the tomato sauce (giving it all the flavor but none of the bits! genius!  this is the most genius part, and what makes it the best damn sauce you ever ate!)  then stir it up real good.

( but wait!  don't throw out all that delicious onion and garlic and basil!  its good for other stuff!  like a quiche!  which should be in a post very soon!

then in a frying pan i sauteed up some pancetta (this is where i moved on from the scarpetta recipe) 

i spooned some of the sauce into the pan to reduce it in a small amount (instead of letting the sauce sit for like 2 hours:

I then tossed in the pasta  and put a pat of butter in it.  this is the final step in the deliciousness!  it made it all nice and super creamy!  yum!!

I then served it with a grating of gruyere cheese (which is a nice alternative to parmesan), and some more fresh basil on top for colour!

mmmmm mmmmm delicious!!!