Simple to make and super-delicious… go on, what are you waiting for?

With another heatwave about to descend, it’s important to keep things as simple as possible in the kitchen but why should that mean compromising on flavour? Say hello to this utterly delicious, super simple and versatile tomato sauce from Kasia Piątkowska, the co-owner and head chef at Tropea in Harborne.

METHOD

• Thinly slice three cloves of garlic.
• Keeping the juice, drain two tins of the best tinned whole plum tomatoes you can find.
• In a wide-bottomed saucepan (the wider the better), gently fry the garlic on a medium heat in three tablespoons of good olive oil. Add a tablespoon of tomato paste and fry that with the garlic until the oil starts to turn red.
• Add the drained tomatoes, mash them up with your spoon and fry them on the same medium heat. Make sure you are stirring and mashing constantly for about 5 minutes until they start to break down and much of the liquid has evaporated.
• Add half a teaspoon of salt and the juice from the drained tomatoes and reduce the whole mixture until you have a chunky tomato sauce consistency. Taste and season with salt and finish with torn basil leaves stirred through.