>>12807
>but it doesn't quite taste as rich and strong as I'd like

Personally I take chopped tomatoes and simmer and stir them till they are practically a paste. I find that this gives an intense flavour. I'd say there is something close to 75% reduction in volume by the time I am done.

A tomato sauce for what? Pasta?

I do mine by frying onions first, garlic, then tins of chopped toms, oregano perhaps. I have it as a soup or a pasta sauce for lazy dinners.

When you say you just cook some tomatoes for a bit, is that literally what you mean, or are you adding other stuff in there?

If the former, what the fuck lad, put some onions and garlic in it at least. If you just missed that part out, as said, reducing your sauce is the standard and best way to add depth of flavour.

It's also a very good idea to start your sauce with a mirepoix. Actually I suppose for an Italian sauce it's more apt to call it a soffrito, but anyway, VERY FINELY dice equal parts carrot, onion, and celery, and slowly, very slowly, sweat them in oil, for maybe twenty minutes. You want them to be soft but not browned. Once you've done that dump your tomato in and cook as you usually do. Parsley is a good idea too but add that within the last ten minutes or so of the whole process to keep the fresh flavour in there. Tomato paste can help too but I've never found it particularly necessary. At least one Italian grandmother I know swears by adding a coupe of teaspoons of vegetable bouillon but I think that makes it taste a bit too much like a jar sauce.

>>12810

>equal parts carrot, onion, and celery

Fuck me I don't know what's wrong with me, it's double the amount of onion to carrots and celery.

>>12810

This, but it is called Soffritto, not soffrito. Sometimes the tomatoes are too acidic and the sauce becomes too sour, it is a good idea to put in some sugar or bicarbonate. No more than a pinch.

Alternatively, you can use the "cold pressed" tomato method. Here's the recipe, Google translate gives a working translation:

https://www.my-personaltrainer.it/Tv/Ricette/Preparazioni_di_Base/passata-pomodoro-crudo.html

>>12812

>but it is called Soffritto, not soffrito

Peak britfa.gs

>>12814
Double letters in Italian are important and are pronounced differently, although I don't quite know how. Eg anno (year) vs ano (anus).

>>12815

This.

>>12814

You won't butcher my language here, you bunch of snaggletoothed abominations

Making one right now.

>>12817
What are those orange things?

Needs about half an hour from here.

>>12820
Poorly chopped carrots. My chopping ability varies according to how many G&Ts I drink while cooking.

Also: for everyone else here - at least two of us are of Mediterranean heritage. This thread is unlikely to end in any kind of agreement on HOW to make the sauce (or what should or should not go in it), but we'll all passionately agree on the importance of it.

Going back to the OP - one of the problems in the UK is that our tomatoes are shite. The tinned stuff we get in our shops is basically the worst of the tinned tomato exports. If I use cheap ones, they need more white wine vinegar/sugar and a lot more cooking. I'm using Sainsburys tinned pomodorinos today, I wish more shops sold San Marzano or something like that. Tomatoes in Italy/Sicily/Malta are out of this world by comparison.

Needs some water from the pasta, but otherwise about ready.

>>12823
>San Marzano

I almost made this suggestion myself but thought it best not to go down the 'use a specific DOP tomato' route - I'm not Italian.

But Amazon is the best civilian source for them, last I checked you have to buy a dozen cans for fifteen quid, which isn't too bad. They do the big cans too, which pleases me.

Your sauce looks lovely, despite both the presence of lentils and the hunks of carrot (G&T handicap acknowledged) giving me the chills.

>>12826
>the presence of lentils

I used to make it with just soya mince - I now use eight tablespoons of Puy lentils, two of red lentils and four of soya mince - gives it more texture and is delicious.

>>12826
Italians don't care or know any better lad.

>>12827

Alright that makes sense, carry on in the knowledge I've made my peace with it.

>>12828

The one's I've met do, or they certainly have a great many opinions about it.

I used to work with an Italian lady, she was lovely, but christ. She visited me in hospital once, brought me a lemon cake thing, and spent a good twenty minutes talking about Sicilian lemons, and how specific people in her life I've never met were wrong for disagreeing with her stance on flour ratios. I was near dying of an infection at the time, so I was too weak to fend her off.

>>12828

>>12829
It was Coco di Mama which made me do it. I eat this for lunch a lot. They actually cook their pasta very well!!

>>12831
That's spirali pasta from Co-op. Be honest with us, lad. Have you been throwing tubs of butter at pensioners?

>>12830

>fascist ball

This isn't more of that insidious alt right creeping in to our site is it?

>>12833
Casually denigrating women is fine, but the moment you see something even remotely 'alt-right' you're on full alert.

>>12833>>12834

I can't tell if either of you or joking or not so just stop immediately

>>12833
Sort yourself out for fucks sake.

>>12835>>12836
Think about it, lads.

What colour is the background of the Nazi flag? Red.
What colour is tomato sauce? Red.

IT'S ALL PART OF THE INSIDIOUS CREEP OF THE ALT-RIGHT TO TAKE OVER THIS BOARD. OPEN YOUR EYES.

>>12833
I believe the "inventor" of *ball memes used to post here very regularly, a long time ago - Polandball was the first.

>>12838

I wonder if this is our biggest claim to fame. I know there's been some vague celebrity suspicions over the years, but other than Bezos giving one of us a shoe once, I think this might be the most notable.

>>12840
Noel Edmonds.

>>12841

My ex girlfriend's cousin was the tramp that got his ear bitten by Alan Davies.

>>12823

Happy to assist a fellow man of culture:

https://www.mydelibox.com/

You can buy almost every REAL italian food from there. The "bulk deals" have a lot of excellent ingredients for a very low price.

>>12843
Thank you very much, I didn't know about them.

Today I've tried using red wine vinegar in my pasta sauce. I think it might be a bit of a game changer.

>>13055
As I said in >>12823 you need a bit of vinegar to make the tomatoes taste nicer. It's definitely a game changer.

I think I've perfected tomato sauce:-

3 tins of chopped tomatoes
6/7 cloves of garlic
Glug of oil
A few herbs
A squeeze of tomato puree

Perfecto.

>>13056
I always add white wine vinegar to pasta. And a small mountain of salt. The pasta should taste delicious on its own.

>>13274
It ain't perfecto if it's tinned tomatoes now is it, mate.

Never heard of them before, but my local Asda has tins of Di Leo chopped tomatoes for 28p so I've stocked up. They must have tried to import shitloads from Italy when everything hit the fan earlier in the year because they also had loads of bronze cut spaghetti and 00 flour for 20p.

How do I make my pasta sauce taste like a tub of Dolmio stir in sauce? It needs to be more... flavoursome.

>>14867
Sugar, salt, pepper, white wine vinegar and a little dash of soy sauce. Using some nice dried mushrooms helps too.

>>14867

Depends. How far from scratch are you starting? Are you using chopped tomatoes and passata or starting from a whole fresh fruit?

The key generally is getting the amount of water right, which is a matter of reducing it down. Tomatoes are 99.9% water and 0.1% flavour. If you add in a good dollop of concentrated tomato puree it'll give you a lot of extra punch. After that it's all about seasoning, you shouldn't need more than some salt, pepper and a bit of basil, but just use your tastebuds. I like a dash of garlic infused olive oil in mine. Don't listen to any cunt who says sugar.

Don't be shy with the salt, either, don't be one of these fannies who thinks it's bad for you and that food should somehow miraculously taste good without it. Salt and fat are the vectors through which flavour travels, and that's just a scientific fact. If you've ever eaten at an Italian restaurant, you're basically paying an extra tenner for them to put twice the amount of salt in.

>>14867

MSG?