Tomato Sauce
Tomato Sauce; rich and glorious
This Tomato Sauce stands out from the crowd with the addition of cumin and lots of lovely garlic. These two important ingredients fill the air with fantastic heady aromas as well as providing full-bodied flavour.
Tomato sauce is of major importance in Egyptian cooking.
Tomato Sauce is a key element in two of Egypt’s signature dishes, Koshery and Lamb Fettah. With Koshery, this wonderful Sauce is liberally ladled over steaming mounds of Rice, Pasta and Lentils. In the case of Lamb Fettah, it’s drizzled over the dish as its crowning glory.
Potatoes, carrots, courgettes, cauliflower, peas, spinach in fact just about every vegetable you can think of can be cooked in tomato sauce in Egypt and served as a side plate.
Similarly it’s great with pasta or even used on pizza.
Ingredients
- Vegetable oil for frying
- 2 onions finely chopped
- 4 cloves garlic grated
- 2 tins of chopped tomatoes or 8 large fresh tomatoes chopped
- 2 stock cubes grated or crumbled
- ½ pt water
- 2 tbsp ground cumin
- the leaves of a small bunch of fresh coriander finely chopped (optional)
- freshly ground black pepper
- a pinch of chilli flakes (optional)
So, let’s make the tomato sauce
Put the tomatoes into a blender and blitz them for a few seconds until they are completely blended.
Pour enough oil into a large frying pan to cover the bottom.
Let’s start frying up those onions
Put this over a medium heat and add the onions. Fry them until they begin to take on a golden-brown colour and soften.
Reduce the heat a little and add the garlic. Cook for just 1 minute.
Then add the blitzed tomatoes to the onions and continue cooking the sauce until it goes from being a pinkish red colour and takes on a much richer red colour.
Add the stock cubes, water, cumin and chilli flakes (if you are using them).
Reduce the heat down to a low simmer.
Simmer for 10 – 15 minutes
Season well with the black pepper and continue simmering for a further 10 -15 minutes until the sauce reduces slightly and thickens up.
Take the pan off the heat.
Add the chopped coriander leaves (if you are using them) just before serving to ensure they don’t lose their colour.
Your delightfully rich tomato sauce is now ready.
Enjoy.