Delicious Italian food can be prepared in an instant by adding tomato sauce or pesto to quickly prepared meat, fish and vegetable dishes, pasta, soups and salads. In this section are two of my favourite sauce recipes to make ahead and store, or, if you need to make a sauce in a hurry, to adorn whatever you are preparing.
There are so many good-quality tomato sauces on the market now, especially the fresh ones sold in Italian delis, but I always like to make my own. This is my version of a plain, simple tomato sauce, which can be used to dress pasta or add to many other dishes. When you have time, it’s always worth making a batch or two to freeze and use later. It will keep fresh in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Cooking time: 25 minutes, including prep time
Makes approx. 680 g/1 lb 8 oz/3 cups
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
½ onion, finely chopped
2 × 400-g/14-oz tins of chopped plum tomatoes
sea salt, to taste
handful of basil, roughly torn
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan set over a medium heat, add the chopped onion and sweat for a couple of minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and some water (about half a tomato can), some salt to taste, and the basil. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer on a low–medium heat for about 20 minutes. Check for seasoning and use accordingly.
Pesto is always handy to keep in the fridge so you can whip up a quick meal in no time. Add it to cooked pasta or gnocchi, liven up vegetable soups, add to omelettes or simply use it in sandwiches. It will keep in the fridge for about a week or it can be frozen. If you store pesto in the fridge, make sure you add some extra-virgin olive oil over the top and cover with clingfilm (plastic wrap) to preserve it. I usually make pesto the old-fashioned way with a pestle and mortar, which doesn’t take that long and means the pesto retains a slight crunchiness, but you can also whiz it in a food processor, which takes no time at all.
Cooking time: 15 minutes by hand/5 minutes in a food processor
Makes 4 servings, to dress pasta or gnocchi
2 tbsp pine nuts
1 garlic clove
½ tsp coarse sea salt
80 g/2¾ oz fresh basil leaves (discard the stalks)
200 ml/7 fl oz/scant 1 cup good-quality extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan
Put the pine nuts, garlic and sea salt into a mortar and grind with a pestle. Add a few basil leaves and some olive oil, grinding and stirring with the pestle. Continue this procedure until you have used up all the basil leaves and about half of the olive oil and have obtained a smooth, silky consistency. Add the remaining olive oil and the Parmesan and combine well.
Alternatively, place all the ingredients in a food processor and blend.
