Emily's Famous All Day Sauce

That's what this pasta sauce has been dubbed. It isn't actually famous, and sometimes (most of the time) it isn't cooked all day, but it is mine. This sauce recipe is my very own creation and very much an Italian recipe. What I mean to say is, this recipe includes a lot of nonstandard measurements.

This batch of sauce easily feeds ~5 adults. More or less depending on how much the people you're serving eat. You can double the recipe, or triple the recipe. It freezes well if you want to make a large batch in advance.

I love making pasta sauce. It doesn't have to be an exact recipe every time. If you want mushrooms one day and none the next it's fine to omit them. As long as you put it on pasta, it's pasta sauce. This recipe is what I put in the pot every time.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons Butter

1/2 Onion, finely chopped
Baby Bella mushrooms (omit entirely, choose a different type, pick how much you want)
4 or 5 maybe 6 garlic cloves, minced
4 or so shakes of Dried Oregano
2 or 3 shakes of Paprika
6 oz can of Tomato Paste
2 15 oz cans of Tomato Sauce (total of 30 oz)
2 - 3 Bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon of Anchovy Paste (usually found near tomato paste or salad dressings)
Ground beef, precooked in a separate pan and drained of excess fat (I usually use about 1/2 pound you can use more)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Whatever else you feel like adding (like red pepper flakes, grated Parmesan, fresh basil, a splash of red wine)

Preparation

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan on medium high heat. Add onion and mushrooms and cook until the onion starts getting translucent.
2. Add garlic and cook until it starts to become fragrant (15-30 seconds). Add oregano, paprika, and tomato paste and cook until tomato paste starts to darken (40 seconds)
3. Pour tomato sauce into the pot making sure to scrape and incorporate all the previous ingredients. Add the bay leaves, anchovy paste, and ground beef. 
4. Cover with lid and let cook at a low simmer until ready for serving. Stir occasionally (I usually go by every 30 to 45 minutes) Remove bay leaves before serving.
5. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

Notes

If you like softer mushrooms you can start off cooking those first and the add onion. Mushrooms are impossible to overcook so you don't have to worry about when to add the onion.

If you don't have fresh garlic you can use garlic powder. Garlic powder is much more potent so you'll only want to use a 1/2 teaspoon or so. To properly use garlic powder, hydrate it with water at a 1:1 ratio. Stir 1/2 teaspoon of water into 1/2 teaspoon of garlic and let it sit while you cook the mushrooms and onions. 

I prefer to use smoked paprika to regular paprika but that's up to you.

If you're preparing this sauce right before dinner you can cook the tomato paste for slightly longer to help develop flavor more quickly.

Trust me on the anchovy paste. You can skip it if you want to. It doesn't taste fishy in the sauce, it give the sauce a slightly salty and deep meaty flavor.

If the pasta sauce is too sweet for your liking, you can add small amounts of lemon juice to get your desired acidity level.

I precook and drain the beef for a few reasons. I don't want raw beef touching any of my cooked ingredients, I don't want the beef to overcook by cooking it first, and I don't want the grease to separate when storing the sauce in the fridge.

My favorite additions to this recipe is a couple shakes of red pepper flakes, and a healthy splash of a nice quality cabernet sauvignon. I add these in after adding the tomato sauce.

The best way to serve this sauce (and pretty much any sauce) is to slightly under cook your choice of pasta, add it to the sauce, and finish cooking it in the sauce. Save the pasta water to thin the sauce down to your desired thickness. The pasta water contains starch that will help the sauce adhere better than plain water will.

DO NOT add olive oil to your pasta. Unless your sauce is olive oil based, olive oil causes your sauce to run off the noodles instead of clinging on. Instead, heavily salt your boiling water before adding your pasta. This helps bring out the pasta flavor. Finishing the pasta in the sauce will keep the noodles from clinging together (why people typically use olive oil). Tomatoes are water based and oil and water don't mix. 

Grate some fresh Parmesan on there.

Start embellishing every word with a wave of your hand.

Buon Appetito.