Chef Ayesha Nurdjaja's Basic Red Sauce
Red Sauce is one of those basic recipes every cook should have in her back pocket. Chef Ayesha Nurdjaja, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY spent most of her career working in Italian kitchens like Lidia Bastiniach’s Felidia, Missy Robbins’ first NYC restaurant A Voce, and Ayesha’s own Red Gravy before taking over the kitchen at A Hundred Acres, now renamed Shuka.
While Nurdjaja currently cooks modern middle eastern cuisine, a cooking style she has been passionate for her whole life, her roots, her family and her first love is for Italian food.
This basic red sauce is for Meatballs, braciole, pasta and all your basic red sauce needs. You can find Ayesha’s meatball recipe and video are up on the site too.
Serving Size: Makes a Really Big Batch
Ingredients
1 head of garlic peeled ( 14 cloves) chopped fine, doesnt have to be perfect
1/2 cup olive oil
6 basil stems with leaves
4 cans of crushed tomatoes (Sclafani brand is my favorite)
1 tbs red crushed pepper
3 tbs salt (add more if needed)
1 tbs calabrian chili paste (optional)
Instructions
You need a wooden spoon! No substitutions for this...sorry!
I use a le creuset 6 qt pot. I like a heavy bottomed pot for tomato sauce.
Add oil and garlic over medium heat, stir with wooden spoon for 4-5 minutes. Add basil stems & crushed red pepper. Stir for 2 minutes.
Add 4 cans of crushed tomatoes. Keep all cans of tomato and add water to 1 can. Slosh any tomato product out of the can and add to the next empty can. You will do this in each of the can to make sure you have extracted all of the tomato product. Add that can of tomato-y water to pot and salt. Bring to boil, simmer on low for 45 mins to an hour. Occasionally stirring every 5 minutes.
Taste and season if needed. I like to add the calabrian chili at this point for an additonal dimension of flavor. This amount with the crushed pepper will not make the sauce spicy. You can omit or double if you want a sauce with a kick!-Ayesha