This sauce will not be bright red as using a good quality red wine vinegar rather than glacial acetic acid. The finished sauce has a pleasant sharpness rather than a sweet finish.
Ingredients
| 1 kg | Tomatoes, ripe, halved and cored (Main) |
| 2 small | Red onions, peeled and cut into wedges |
| 4 | Garlic cloves, peeled and halved |
| 1 large handful | Basil leaves, roughly shredded |
| 1 drizzle | Olive oil |
| 200 ml | Red wine vinegar |
| 5 Tbsp | Soft brown sugar, use up to 6 Tbsp |
Directions
- Heat the oven to 140C.
- Place the tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil in a deep roasting dish. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Toss well to combine, tucking most of the basil under the tomatoes.
- Place in the oven to slow roast for 2 hours. Remove from the oven and leave to cool a little before placing in a food processor and processing to a puree. At this point the sauce can be used as a fresh tomato sauce for pizza and pasta. Cook down to thicken or if too thick, loosen with vegetable stock.
- To preserve your tomato sauce, push puree through a fine sieve into a wide heavy-based saucepan to remove seeds. Place over a low heat, add the vinegar and sugar and stir gently to dissolve the sugar.
- Simmer to a sauce consistency, adding more salt to counteract the acidity of the vinegar. It will taste rather vinegary to begin with, so don't be too surprised when you have your first taste!
- Pour into hot sterilised sauce bottles and seal. Keep in the fridge once cold.