Default Red Sauce

What goes in is what comes out

Before I get into this, you have to understand one thing.
The flavour of your sauce is the sum total of what you've put in, and every great sauce is built upon the experience of families, cultures, people. The ingredients we use have been cultivated for longer than we even know, and the combinations have been chosen for a reason.
These combinations are not rules, but they are guidance.

What you need

Okay, let's get into the recipe right away.

Red stuff

• 5-6 medium tomatoes / loads of cherry tomatoes / fewer big tomatoes

My favourites are plum tomatoes, but if you use cherry tomatoes, you'll get a rather different taste in the end. Why not try mixing a couple of different kinds?
Tomatoes are ubiquitous in cooking globally now, but they had their origins in the Americas, and were cultivated there for thousands of years before the beginning of the colonial era.
In return for the gift of the tomato, it's estimated that around 95% of the indigenous population were killed.

Flavour stuff

• 1 big yellow onion / a bunch of shallots / 2 medium white onions
• 1-2 medium carrots
• your heart will inform you of the quantity of garlic
• a good squeeze of tomato paste
• 1 bay leaf, no you can't skip it, yes it makes a difference
• salt & pep
• your favourite Italian hard cheese (Parm Reggi , Gran Pad, Pec Roma)
• olive oil
• stock or bouillon

Olive trees are a slow crop, which can live for hundreds, even thousands of years, and from the time they are planted, some varieties can take a decade to produce fruit. Communities dependent on olive trees grow around them over these same time scales, and their look is that of the elderly: gnarled, wrinkled bark, each carrying its unique fingerprint.
The destruction of these trees is frequently used by settlers as a method of erasing the existence of Palestinian communities.

(Optional)

• a stalk of celery if it's your vibe
• basically any other root vegetable
• couple leafs of basil

How do you make it?

Before you begin, I want you to take stock of what you have in front of you. Think about where these ingredients came from, what they represent, to you, to others. Think of the average person in Iran, or Sudan, or Palestine, or anywhere else in the world. That average person has a lot more in common with you than any of us has in common with our leaders, even if it can be easy to forget that.
You would be within your rights now to feel compelled to donate to humanitarian charities, send letters to your representatives, attend protests, or even do something as simple as being kind to a neighbour in distress.
Go ahead, we've got time.

Make slices in the skins of your tomatoes, and boil them briefly until they're visibly peeling away. Drain out the hot water and replace it with cold, and peel off the skins while holding them under the cold water to protect your fingers. Put the tomatoes in a food processor with a little water and blitz to smooth.

Meanwhile, chop your onion and garlic pretty small, peel your carrots and chop them in a couple of big chunks, and start sautéeing them in your pot with some olive oil until the onions are starting to brown.
Add the bay leaf and the tomato paste, cook briefly, then add your pureed tomatoes from before to deglaze.
Add your stock (or water and bouillon), and let it simmer for a long time. If your Italian hard cheese is almost finished, just chuck the rind in at this point. Otherwise, grate a bunch in towards the end of cooking, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

And that's it. Default red sauce for pasta.

Of course, this can become any number of other red sauces - cook some meatballs in it, add beef mince with the onions and chop the carrots smaller to make a bolognese, mix it with some béchamel to make a pink sauce, or one of my favourites: add some smoked salmon, spinach, and crème fraîche.