Basic Pasta Sauce

By LadyJ1114

I use this sweet and snappy sauce on everything - to sauce grilled chicken, sliced steak, shrimp skewers, to simmer mussels, and I love it spooned over ricotta with lots of shaved Parmesan.

Ingredients

• 4 garlic cloves, sliced -
• please do not use pre-chopped stuff in a jar
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• One 28 ounce can Italian Crushed Tomatoes
• One bunch of fresh Basil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Step 1

Cook the garlic and crushed red pepper flakes in the olive oil in a heavy saucepan, over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until garlic is softened and fragrant. Do not brown the garlic. If your oil is too hot, move the pan off the burner. Our intent is to infuse the oil with the flavor of the garlic and crushed red pepper to more fully blend into the tomato.

Add the San Marzano Italian crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. Add 3 or 4 whole stems of fresh basil. Just take them out of the package, arrange them into a little bouquet and toss them in whole! Season with a good teaspoon of Kosher salt - 8 to 10 good turns of a fresh pepper mill - add a half cup of white wine if you have it.

Reduce heat to medium low and allow sauce to bubble like crazy for 8 to 10 minutes, giving it a stir now and then. As for the other half of the package of fresh basil; remove about 10 nice big leaves, stack and tightly roll them up. Cut across the roll, into very fine slices, and fluff the shreds. (This is called chiffonade if you want to impress people)

Stir your chiffonade of basil into the sauce - cook another 4 to 6 minutes - and that's the dish.