Not just any tomato sauce - this is intense!
The sauce is made with fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, cayenne chili flakes, dried oregano and basil, seasalt, red wine and pepper. Olives and capers are added just at the end so that the olives don't get overstewed and the capers don't disappear. We got these hothouse tomatoes on sale because they had blemishes. (We paid $1.00 for all these tomatoes.)
The blemishes are small and easy to cut away.
Saute onions, garlic and chili flakes in olive oil til the onions are soft. Add chopped tomatoes, seasalt, red wine and dried oregano. Cover the pan until tomatoes begin to wilt then uncover and leave on a slow simmer to reduce.
Stir and mash from time to time. Here are the tomatoes after about an hour of slow simmering. About half way through add some dried basil.
And here they are after about two hours of slow simmering. Add pepper. The tomato sauce is now virtually ready. At this point, it can be cooled and reheated for later use. Close up view of completely reduced tomatoes. (See the top of the page for the zoomed out view.)
Add sun-dried black olives and capers and garnish with chiffonaded basil leaves just before serving. We used two kinds: genovese and purple globe. It's wonderful with barbecued chicken and steamed cauliflower!
