Tomato passata

At this time of year we are always overwhelmed with tomatoes. Despite our own vegetable patch looking a bit sorry for itself we are given crates of them every day by neighbours who seem to grow them on an industrial scale.

It’s never a bad thing to have too many tomatoes as they can easily be made into a sauce, delicious eaten fresh and also easy to conserve. Local families make loads (some as much as 700 litres) of passata and it lasts them all year.

The first stage is to make the passata. Put all the washed tomatoes in a big, heavy based, saucepan and add a whole onion and a sprig of basil.

Let the tomatoes come to the boil, making sure not to burn the base of the pan (I squash a few tomatoes with a spoon to release the liquid at the beginning of the cooking).

Keep it bubbling away and reducing for about an hour and then put the whole thing through a mouli to remove skins and seeds.

Heat up a generous amount of olive oil in a pan and add a small amount of very finely chopped onions. When these have cooked add the passata, some more basil and some salt.

Let the sauce come to the boil and then lower the heat and simmer until the sauce has reduced down to how you like it.

This tomato sauce is the basis of Italian cuisine and made in this way is liquid health. It can be preserved by bagna maria - boiling up sealed jars or alternatively by adding a preservative that can be bought in all local pharmacies.