You’ve heard me say before that it doesn’t take much to please me. Like watching our neighbor, Josh, spread a layer of “black gold”/aged horse manure on our tilled vegetable gardens. Ready for planting! Coinciding with prepping the gardens is a spring inventory of the pantry staples in my heirloom pie safe. Enough air circulates through the punched tin door panels to keep jars of preserved foods in good condition. 

But there’s always a few jars of home canned tomatoes that are close to the “use by” date. 

Just the inspiration I needed, really, to make my version of Marcella Hazan’s simple pasta sauce again. Her sauce is legendary for this reason: it contains no olive oil, garlic or Italian herbs. Just tomatoes, a good bit of butter and a halved onion. I call it “crave worthy.” (We like to add a bit of garlic which enhances, but doesn’t overwhelm, the sauce).

This pasta takes me back to days in Rome with my best friend, Carol. There was a family run small restaurant near our hotel that served the most delicious pasta with a somewhat silky red sauce. Not spicy but softly full flavored. This recipe is as close as I can come to those special memories.

Crave worthy chunky tomato sauce 

Note that the onion is cut in half, lengthwise. Called cutting from pole to pole or from top to bottom, this allows the onion to keep its shape pretty well during cooking. 

Ingredients

6 tablespoons butter

1 clove garlic, minced/1 scant teaspoon

1 medium onion, 8 oz or so, peeled and cut in half lengthwise

A good 3 cups/28 oz whole or diced tomatoes with juice – see tip

Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan for garnish

Instructions

Melt butter over medium low heat in saucepan.

Stir in garlic and cook just until it smells fragrant, but not brown.

Add tomatoes and smoosh down with potato masher if using whole tomatoes. 

Add onion halves and stir them around a bit. No worries if some pieces separate off since onion gets removed before serving. 

Continue to cook, uncovered, 45 minutes or so. Give it a stir now and then. It’s done when onion looks fairly translucent and limp and sauce thickens. 

Remove onion, add salt and pepper. 

Serve over spaghetti with a shower of Parmesan.

Serves 4-5.