Classic Hollywood Cooking: Audrey Hepburn's Spaghetti al Pomodoro
Since our province went on virtual lockdown back in mid-March, and I find myself self-isolating with my parents two-and-a-half hours away from my apartment, I've been cooking a lot of the family meals. And that means, more often than not, I'm the one choosing what we're making, and one recipe I keep coming back to is Audrey's recipe for Spaghetti al Pomodoro.
As you know, I'm a huge Audrey Hepburn fan. I have the Audrey at Home cookbook/biography written by her son, Luca Dotti, and I'm often consulting it for new-to-me recipes. I don't follow the recipe to the letter, though, but I think I follow it closely enough that the results are the same. The sauce is very hearty, and I love the smells that come from the kitchen as the vegetables loosen up.
One way we deviate from the original recipe: we add meat to ours. It adds an extra layer of taste, especially when the tomato sauce seeps into the ground beef. Topped with parmesan cheese, and it's a hit!
Ingredients:
3lbs vine-ripened tomatoes, cored (I used two cans of crushed tomatoes)
1 stalk celery
1 carrot
1 diced onion
Basil leaves
Olive oil
Sugar (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
Spaghetti noodles
Parmesan cheese
Directions:
1. Cook tomatoes, celery, carrot, and onion in a large pot with lid on, high heat, for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables start to soften.
2. Remove the lid and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Turn heat to medium-low and add drizzle of olive oil and basil leaves to tomato sauce. Cook and stir until the bubbles are no longer water-based, but instead are small craters of sauce. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Remove large vegetable chunks.
4. Audrey's recipe calls for a food mill, the hand-held and -operated kind, to turn the sauce into a puree, but I used a blender and it worked fine. Add olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper to taste, and to adjust the natural bitterness of the sauce.
5. Cook spaghetti as per box directions, drain and add to sauce to mix together. Top with parmesan cheese (Audrey's recipe calls for Parmigiano-Reggiano).
6. Enjoy!
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