This recipe comes from a Russian chef I found on Youtube. It seems a bit fiddly to start with but once you’ve made it a couple of times it’s pretty easy and produces amazing results! I have shortened the recipe for convenience, but if you want to do it properly there’s a video at the bottom of the page. 

Ingredients

  • 75ml Olive oil
  • 5 Garlic Cloves
  • 300g Pasata
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • 45g onion (diced)
  • 120g Cherry Tomatoes (quartered)
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 tsp lemon zest (zested)
  • 30 ml each of red wine, white wine and vodka
  • 1tbsp fresh basil
  • 2tsp balsamic vinegar

Method

  1. Heat up 60ml of the oil and add half of the pasata, sugar and some salt. Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until you see small bubbles popping through the pasata. DO NOT STIR DURING THIS FIRST PHASE.
  2. Add tomatoes, onions and garlic. Now you can stir, and leave to cook until the tomatoes have melted into the sauce.
  3. Add the rest of the pasata, the lemon zest, black pepper and the alcohol. Then cover and cook for 10 minutes
  4. Add the cayenne pepper, stir, cover and cook for another 5 minutes
  5. Stir in the fresh basil and turn off the heat.
  6. Leave to cool, blend with a wand blender and add the balsamic vinegar.

done – easy huh?