Make This Cheap Pasta Sauce With Brown Butter and Tomato Paste
Whenever my boyfriend asks me if I’d like to “make the sauce”, the implication is that it will be an activity. “Sauce” is not a quick dinner; it’s a taste development test that involves chopping and sautéing onions, chopping garlic, frying sausage, and simmering for at least an hour (usually more). Spaghetti with caramelized tomatoes isn’t that kind of sauce, but it’s delicious thanks to a modest can of tomato paste (and lots of brown butter).
Tomato paste, as you probably know, is a concentrated product made by boiling tomatoes for a long period of time to drastically reduce their water content, turning what could have been a sauce (or passata ) into a paste. (It’s right there in the title.) It’s deep, sweet, and tangy. Combined with toasted butter and starchy pasta water, it turns into a rich, intense sauce that tastes like it’s been simmering for hours. And, in a sense, it happened. You simply were not present at this boiling.
It’s not only delicious, but also cheap. All you need to make these spaghetti is a six-ounce can of tomato paste (which costs a dollar), a stick of butter (a little over a dollar), and a pound of spaghetti (also fairly cheap, depending on the brand). . Brown the butter and cook the pasta in the butter until it darkens and caramelizes. Boil a few spaghetti for one minute until al dente and reserve a couple cups of water for the pasta. Add this water to the pasta, stir and let simmer for a few minutes to thicken the pasta before finishing the pasta in the sauce. Ready.
The sauce combines a ton of flavor with few ingredients, but it also lends itself well to additions and modifications. Saute some garlic or red pepper flakes in oil before adding the pasta, or season it with garlic powder while you cook for a deeper, toasted flavor. The real pleasure is in the decoration. I like to rub spaghetti with a fluffy heap of pecorino romano and top it all over with crispy fried garlic.
Caramelized tomato spaghetti with brown butter
Ingredients:
- 1 pound spaghetti
- 1 pack of salted butter
- 1 can of 6 oz tomato paste
- Finishers: Your favorite table cheese and/or roasted garlic
Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil and cook the spaghetti according to package directions, reducing the cooking time by a minute and stopping just short of al dente. Reserve two cups of pasta water and set aside. Drain spaghetti.
While pasta is simmering, melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Let the oil foam and sizzle until it turns a dark amber color and fills the kitchen with a wonderful nutty aroma. Add a can of tomato paste to the oil and cook, stirring frequently, until it darkens and starts to stick to the pan. Add pasta water and stir.
Bring the sauce to a boil and let simmer for about five minutes, until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Taste and season with salt if needed and/or sprinkle with a little garlic powder if you like. Add pasta to sauce and stir; cook for a further minute until the pasta is al dente. Serve immediately with freshly grated salted cheese (and roasted garlic if you have it).