Mark Moriarty: "I love pizza and although I’m a big fan of white pizzas, you can’t beat one topped with a rich tomato sauce, fresh with the flavours of garlic and herbs. My classic pizza sauce can be eaten fresh or stored in the freezer and used later. But let’s start at the beginning, with some high-quality tomatoes…"
Ingredients
Datterino tomatoes: 40 small, piccolo or santorini will do as well
Kosher salt
Caster sugar
Garlic: 8 cloves, skin on
Extra virgin olive oil: 150 ml
Thyme: 8 sprigs
Tomato paste: 50 g
Red wine vinegar: 20 ml
Chef Mark Moriarty shows us how to prepare pizza sauce as part of Fine Dining Lovers' series: The Secrets of Sauces.
To Prepare
Watch the video of chef Moriarty in action, and follow the step-by-step recipe below to find out how:
01.
Preheat the oven to 50°C. Slice the tomatoes in half and place open-side-up on a baking tray.
02.
Season evenly with salt and caster sugar.
03.
Place the garlic cloves, thyme sprigs and a dash of olive oil on top, and leave in the oven overnight (or 8 hours). This will remove some of the water content from the tomatoes and concentrate the flavour.
04.
Now remove the thyme stalks, leaving the leaves on the tomatoes. Squeeze the garlic pulp from their skins as well, then place everything in a blender.
05.
Season with tomato paste, salt and the vinegar. As the sauce blends, emulsify in the high-quality olive oil.
06.
This sauce is ready to use straight away, or can be decanted into containers and kept in the freezer to be used later.
