Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce with Cream and Cheese

Fresh Tomato Sauce

For August 2013

Tomato lovers love August, when there’s a bounty of ripe, red fruit hanging from vines in backyards, stacked in bins at the supermarkets and stuffed into buckets at farm stands. It’s all an incredibly tasty inspiration. End-of-summer tomatoes are not merely sweet and splendid for eating out of hand (sprinkled with sea salt and freshly ground pepper) or for adding to a salad, but also for cooking, especially for fresh tomato sauce.

Sauce made with fresh summer tomatoes is not at all like the kind we cook when it’s cold out. Those, lovingly made with canned tomatoes and stewed for hours on the stove, are thick and rich, heavy and rib-sticking, qualities that make us feel warm and secure.

When it’s hot outside though, and we yearn for food that makes us feel cool and free, it’s easy to understand the appeal of a lighter, more refreshing sauce made with fresh produce; a dish that’s delicate and easy to digest, in harmony with the weather.

Fresh tomato sauce is also quick and easy to cook.

Here’s the simplest version: sauté chopped tomatoes in a bit of olive oil until the pulp is soft, about 15 minutes. No more is needed. You can mix it into pasta or use it as a salsa for grilled vegetables or meat and even as a dip for fresh, crusty bread.

You never need to go beyond these basics, but if you wish, and without too much fuss, this simple dish can be a foundation for more complex variations. Add chopped onion and garlic or a few fresh chopped herbs (basil, oregano, marjoram, summer savory or thyme are recommended). Mushroom fans can sauté a cupful of sliced mushrooms (or 1/2 cup dried, soaked mushrooms) along with the onion. If you like sauce that’s spicy and well seasoned, add a chopped Habanero or Serrano pepper (or 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper). Bacon aficionados can crisp up 2-3 ounces of chopped bacon or pancetta and use the rendered fat to cook the tomatoes.

Summer tomato sauce will still retain its light, fresh feel even if you bulk it up with vegetables (such as olives, eggplant, zucchini or bell peppers) or ground veal (or other meat), and even if you enrich it with cream and add lots of grated fresh Parmesan cheese.

It isn’t necessary to peel and deseed the tomatoes before you cook with them, but texture improves if you do. Here’s how: heat a large pot of water. When it comes to a boil, add the tomatoes. Cook for 20 seconds. Drain the tomatoes under cold water. Pierce each tomato near the stem end with the tip of a sharp knife and pull back to remove the skin. Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise and squeeze out the seeds.

Any variety of tomato will work for fresh sauce, so take advantage of end-of-summer sales and bulk discounts whether you see plum tomatoes, beefsteaks or any other types. Plum tomatoes are usually the first choice of professional cooks because the flesh is drier and consequently sauce made with plum tomatoes is less watery. No matter; if you use round tomatoes, cook the sauce longer and it will be just fine.