I made a super-yummy spagetti sauce today. Probably my favorite ever, due to the smoke flavour it has. The key ingredient is two "Pasilla de Oaxaca" dried chiles that I bought from http://chillychiles.com (its located here in Ottawa).
This is kind of like an arrabiatta sauce, but with a smoky flavour. Its simple and takes about 30 minutes to make
2 cans good quality whole plumb tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, pressed through garlic press
olive oil
fresh basil, including stems
2 Pasilla de Oaxaca chiles
Torn mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper
red wine vinegar (optional - I didnt bother)
a little sugar (optional)
your favorite pasta
optional vegetables to taste
seperate the basil leaves from the stems. Chop up the stems and fry them in olive oil with the garlic and the two chiles over medium heat for a few minutes. Add the cans of plumb tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. once heated, cover and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. At this point, remove one of the chiles, chop it up as fine as possible and add it back into the sauce. Also chop up the basil leaves and add them as well. If you want more heat, you can also chop the second chile as well. simmer for a further 10 minutes, remove the whole chile and discard (unless you chopped it up earlier).
now mush up the tomatoes. you can do this with a fork or a spoon, or a hand blender - its good to not blend it up too fine, nice to have a few chunks of tomatoes still in the sauce. Add a bit of red wine vinegar (optional) and taste. if it is a bit bitter (it may depend on the tomatoes), you can add a little sugar.
if you want to have some vegetables in your pasta, at this point add them, turn the heat back up a bit and let them cook for 10 minutes. I had zucchini, green pepper, red pepper and mushrooms. You can add what you like, or nothing at all.
Cook your pasta according to the directions. Tear up some chunks of mozzarella. Spoon the sauce on the pasta and top with the chunks of mozzarella. Enjoy.
