16 July 2016

Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce reminds me of awful school lunches

And that’s not a good thing, not that she’ll ever know it, having died three years ago. She was a legend for Italian cooking, American style. But her tomato sauce, “…perhaps [her] most famous recipe…,” reports the New York Times, is nothing more than canned tomatoes boiled up with butter and fried onions (she removed the onions before inflicting the sauce on her pasta). For some reason, her recipe appeared on my Facebook feed this morning, triggering memories of school lunches I’d successfully repressed for almost 60 years.

We were served spaghetti in tomato sauce. The menu called it “Italian spaghetti.” I called it…well, I don’t use those words on this blog. What got slopped on my plate looked and tasted like worms in blood. I doubt it contained any butter. And it looked like worms in blood when I dumped it in the trash.

After that ordeal, decades passed before I discovered that spaghetti in tomato sauce could be tasty — and that discovery required years of experimenting in the kitchen. But eventually I learned what Hazan never did: meat, olives, and bell peppers, are what make spaghetti sauce great.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1.25 pounds lean ground beef, canned sliced mushrooms, and coarsely chopped sweet onion.
1 large orange bell pepper, cut into thumbnail sized chunks.
1 can large ripe olives, cut in two eyeball style.
1 ounce freshly shredded sharp cheddar cheese.
1 jar of Tuscan tomato pasta sauce with roasted garlic.
Cayenne pepper and smoked paprika.

Here’s what you’ll do:

After browning the beef, mushrooms, and onion, in super extra double ultra virgin olive oil, stir in the Tuscan sauce, adding a bit of water. Bring to a boil.
Back off the heat a bit, add the cayenne and paprika — don’t be parsimonious with the cayenne — stir, then sprinkle in the shredded cheddar. Stir until the cheddar melts and blends with the sauce. Add the bell pepper and olives. Simmer for ten minutes or so, until the bell pepper is cooked to your preference.
Apply a generous portion to freshly cooked capellini, anoint with parmesan cheese, and thank Divine Providence that you didn’t employ Marcella’s recipe.