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Smooth tomato sauce

Passata, garlic and a little sugar, simmered down

Easy10 min hands-on · 30 min totalServes 2
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A pan of smooth, deep red tomato sauce with a wooden spoon resting across the rim.

Doubles easily in a wider pan, with a few extra minutes to reduce back down to the same thickness. Keeps three days in the fridge. Freezes well in flat bags.

A jar of passata already has everything a tomato sauce needs and nothing it does not, since the skin and seeds are taken care of before it ever reaches you. Garlic cooked low and slow until soft and sweet does most of the flavouring, with a splash of stock for body and a pinch of sugar to round off the tomato's sharper edges. A sprig of basil can infuse while it simmers, so long as it comes back out again before serving, whole and unbroken. Ladle it over pasta or chicken, and it freezes in portions for whenever it is needed.

Suits after surgery, a narrowed bowel, chemotherapy diarrhoea, a new stoma, during pelvic radiotherapy, after a low anterior resection

Tags Batch-friendly · Freezes well · Vegetarian

Ingredients

Contains: Milk, Celery

  • 15 gunsalted butter
  • 2 clovegarlic, finely grated
  • 400 mlpassata
  • 100 mlclear stock, vegetable or chicken, strained if home-made
  • 1 tspsugar
  • 1 sprigbasil, infused into the sauce as it simmers, then lifted out whole before serving — optional
  • salt

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat. Add the garlic and cook gently for a minute, stirring, until it smells sweet and has softened into the butter with no colour on it.

  2. Pour in the passata and stock, stir in the sugar, and add the basil sprig if you are using it. Bring to a gentle simmer.

  3. Cook, uncovered, at a low simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened slightly and lost the raw, sharp edge of tinned tomato.

  4. Lift out and discard the basil sprig if you used one. Taste and season with salt.

Watch-points

  • Cook the garlic gently until completely soft, with no raw bite or crisp edge.
  • Use a stock that is clear and strained, with no vegetable pieces in it.
  • Leave out fresh herbs entirely, or use one whole sprig of basil simmered in the sauce and lifted out before serving. Nothing chopped goes in.

Some hospitals allow a sprig of basil infused into a sauce and lifted out before serving; the leaflet this book follows does not. Leave it out if you have been told to.

Make it more nourishing

  • Stir in 2 tablespoons of double cream at the end for a milder, rose-coloured sauce.
  • Beat in an extra 15 g of butter once the sauce is off the heat, for a glossier finish.
  • Stir in 30 g of grated Parmesan just before serving, over pasta or a bake.

Swaps

Instead of a basil sprig, use a bay leaf, infused into the sauce as it simmers and lifted out the same way
a different, more savoury background note that behaves exactly the same
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