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Tomato sauce for pizza
If you are making your own pizzas, then you'll need this recipe for a spicy topping.
Make larger quantities and freeze the remainders for the next pizza making session.
There is a good basic pizza dough recipe here.
Ingredients
- 30 ml olive oil
- 1 onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- ½ teaspoon chili pepper flakes
- Pinch chili powder
- 90 ml red wine
- Dash of sherry vinegar
- 1 tablespoon tomato puree
- 1 400 g can peeled plum tomatoes,chopped
- Big handful basil leaves, torn
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- sprig fresh thyme leaves,
- 1 teaspoon demerara sugar
- 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method
- Heat the oil in a pan and add the garlic, chili flakes, chili powder and onions and fry gently until translucent, about 4 minutes
- Add the paprika powder, red wine and sherry vinegar and simmer to reduce by half
- Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan with the tomato puree and bring to the boil
- Add the remaining herbs, reduce and simmer for 30 minutes
- Pour the sauce into a food processor with a blade and blitz to a puree
- Return to the pan and add the sugar and Parmesan cheese and cook for a further 15 minutes
- Season with salt and pepper, the final consistency should be a paste not runny. Reduce a little more if required.
- Allow to cool
Chef's tip
If you are making the sauce ahead of the pizzas and it needs further reduction, just remove from the heat and leave to dry out a little, naturally. This works especially well in a large frying pan.
A brilliant, but rather obvious idea that has only come to me recently, is to make double the amount, bag it up and freeze it in one or two pizza portions. Home-made pizzas are great, but sometimes it's too much hassle to have to make the sauce as well.
Bottled bolognaise-type sauce makes a good very pizza topping with very little effort. Freeze the remainder in pizza-portion sized bags for the next pizza making session.
