Salsa Napolitano aka nap sauce

just written this out for insane……….it tastes ok when i do it but shall take no responsibility for any breakdown of relationships or lawsuits if it turns out crap!!! 😉

Neapolitan sauce

Olive oil – a drizzling, enough to cook the veg – 2 table spoons should do it.
Salt – to taste ( I don’t normally use it as the stock cube has enough for me but some prefer it more salty)
Pepper – to taste.

Celery – 1 stick
Carrot – 1
Onion – ½ to ¾ (depends how much you like onion)
Garlic – 1 or 2 cloves, again depends on your preference and who your kissing ;o)
Chilli – 1 small birdseye chilli or else a light dash of chilli powder (remember Neapolitan sauce doesn’t actually have chilli, otherwise it would be known as arrabiata sauce)
Green or yellow pepper – 1, optional!! I use it if I have it just for the extra taste.

Chopped tomatoes or passata – 1 tin or packet
Red wine
Bayleafs
Parsley
Basil
Oregano
Stock cube vegetable (I use knorr)

Butter

Roughly chop up the celery, carrot, onion, pepper, garlic and chilli. (small 1cm cubes for the celery, carrot and onion), slightly bigger for the pepper and chop the garlic and chilli finely.

Pour olive oil into the cooking pot and get it warming up. Once hot reduce to a medium heat and throw in the celery, onion carrot.
Once sweating or browned off ( 2 or 3 minutes) add the garlic and chilli (if using fresh chilli) and cook for a further 2 minutes maintaining the medium heat (if stuff is browning too quick then turn down heat further).
Lastly, add the pepper if you’re using it and allow it to sweat a little.

Remember to keep stirring to prevent the veg sticking to the bottom of the pan.

If your using a tin of chopped tomatoes then remove the tomatoes from the tin, separate from the juice using a colander (but don’t throw away the juice), warm them slightly in the microwave and then use a fork to mash up the tomatoes into smaller pieces. If using passata then use about ½ of the packet.

Whichever you choose you now add the tomatoes/passata to the cooking veg, and stir in properly then add 1 or 2 bayleaves.

Get a mug or small jar and add some boiling water to it (a mug is usually about ½ pint) then add the stock cube to it and stir it until its dissolved……..be sure to keep an eye on the cooking sauce and keep it stirring so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

Get a glass of red wine and ideally put it in the microwave until its boiling…………once boiled, try and light the wine with a match or lighter to burn off the alcohol (this isn’t essential but helps remove some of the sharpness from the wine), once done add the wine to the sauce and stir in well……….make sure it’s not boiling furiously, you want it to be simmering the whole time.

Allow to simmer for a couple of minutes then add the dissolved stock and stir in well. You now have your sauce with all the veg mixed in with what looks like a watery mess! Let it simmer for a few minutes then have a taste and see if you want to add any salt/pepper to the mix. If using the chilli powder or flakes now is the time to add to the mix then have another taste.

Keep stirring…………

Now, we just have to let it simmer for a while………we need to reduce the liquid in the sauce so that we are left with a thick reddish sauce with the veg mixed in……if you want to give it a bit more colour and a tad more of a tomato taste then add a bit of the juice you kept aside from the tomatoes earlier……..i normally add most of it back but my Mum tends not to use it so much as it has too much acidity in it (you can counter the acidity by adding ½ tea spoon of sugar)

Keep stirring…………

After a while of simmering (about 30 mins) you can see the liquid level has gone down, get your parsley and basil and add to the mix ~ the quantity is hard to gauge, I normally just do a sprinkling of each if it’s the dry stuff; if it’s the fresh stuff then tear off a dozen or so leaves of parsley and maybe 5 leaves of basil and roughly chop them into small bits.

Get your water boiling for the pasta and measure up how much of it you want………leave that to you ;o)

Allow to simmer for a further 10 or so minutes, by this time the sauce should be quite thick with hardly any liquid, get a knob of butter,add to the sauace and stir in well; this helps thicken the sauce but also stops the pasta sticking together.

By now, your pasta should of boiled too, remove from the water drain it off then add a small drizzle of olive oil, this too will stop the pasta sticking together (the starch in the pasta is very sticky) and mix it well.

Add some sauce to the pasta and mix well, once mixed in add a bit more to suit your taste, some people like plenty whilst other prefer it with less!

Buon appetitio

Everybody makes it different buy hopefully this is a good starting point for some of the peeps who want to give it a go.

8)