Pasta and tomato and mushroom sauce

[rhythmaning]

I have just eaten pasta with a simple tomato and mushroom sauce.

It was absolutely delicious.

To make the sauce, I sautéed an onion with several cloves of garlic in some olive oil. I added a tin of chopped tomatoes, a handful of dried herbs, and a glass of red wine, and left it on the hob for three quarters of an hour or so. Then I added six sliced mushrooms, and left the lid off the pan so it the liquid would reduce.

I grated some grana padano over the pasta and sauce.

The whole was really delicious. It was surprising that something so simple could taste so good.

I can’t help thinking it must be something in the tin of tomatoes. This tin came from Tesco – a British supermarket – as opposed from Waitrose, where the last few tins I used came from. (Before that, the tin pretends to have come from Italy. I don’t know whether this is true or not.) This tasted much, much better than the last tomato and mushroom sauce I made. So, thank you, Tesco.

Comments

[white_hart]

I find that canned tomatoes vary wildly in terms of their acidity, even from the same supermarket. A pinch of sugar usually works if a sauce is too acidic, and I generally add tomato puree as well.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I used to add tomato puree, but I am not sure it ever made much difference. I certainly like adding wine, though it must increase the acidity. To be honest, I don't think that I could identify what works in a sauce - whether it was too acid - except the sauces I made with Waitrose's tins of tomatoes seemed a bit watery.

[white_hart]

I think the tomato puree adds richness if the tomatoes aren't very strongly flavoured. Mushrooms can also make a sauce a bit watery - it depends on the variety and how old they are. I find shrivelly old mushrooms tend to have more flavour than really fresh ones, and the fact that they're shrivelled doesn't matter in a sauce.