2 Dollar Spaghetti and Meatballs _ But Cheaper

I'm gonna make you the perfect Italian tomato sauce .

It's one of the building blocks of Italian food .

And if you're gonna cook well , you gotta know what the building blocks are of any cuisine that you choose to do .

So , it's a really , really important thing .

Tomato sauce really typifies Italian food .

It's used in so many dishes on pizzas with pasta and Ragu , you know , stews , all sorts of things .

I'm sure you've all made a tomato sauce before you all make tomato sauce .

Yeah .

I used to think .

I knew how to make tomato sauce until one day I was standing with some friends and I'd cook the dinner .

We were in Italy and they've got their Italian friends there and I serve up the pasta with tomato sauce on it and I noticed that the wife was going like this and I thought , oh God , what's wrong ?

There's something wrong with the food , you know .

So I went racing over and I said , what's wrong ?

What's wrong ?

She said nothing .

I said , no , I saw you going like this and going , you know what's wrong with it ?

She said , well , not enough oil .

You haven't cooked it long enough .

You know , it was one of those tomato sauces that I thought I knew how to make until you look at the pasta and you get that watery residue at the bottom of the night .

This is how you make tomato sauce .

The first thing I'm gonna do is chop two onions .

It's a very simple one .

You can do all sorts of other ones with all sorts of other ingredients added , But this is the most simple one of all .

And I think it's one of the best .

So , and I'm gonna finally chop these , this is a rustic sauce .

I'm not gonna get too hysterical about chopping onions if I was in Italy watching , uh , this are you sure what ?

See that in ?

But just chop it up .

It's just really not gonna matter .

I'm gonna cook these onions for at least 10 minutes in a lot of oil .

So they're going to melt .

The other thing I want is four cloves of garlic in here as well .

This pasta dough is in my book , not the flex , but it literally is the number one New York Times best seller .

And I know I'm plugging it , but the link is in the bio for anyway , let's make our big juicy bowls .

Great meatballs don't need to be complicated .

They just need a touch of technique , some essential ingredients and maybe an individual that gives a fuck about what they're doing for themselves for once sort of with a quarter pound of ham .

In this case , I use to which is slightly pricier and also not ham .

I would recommend going with ham .

If you wanna save the cash chop that bad boy fine and place in a medium sized bowl to that bowl , you'll add £1 of ground beef .

Oh , wow .

Dang .

One teaspoon of finely ground fennel seed , 1.5 teaspoons of fine sea salt .

Three close garlic that have been finely chop .

A quarter cup of fresh grated pepper in or Parmesan cheese , fresh cracked black pepper to taste .

Give it a good mix to incorporate and add half a cup of panco bread crumbs and one whole egg .

Mix it together and need for about one minute until mul and tacky look a good force meat like this should have a little bounce to it , almost jiggle .

You know , you want that thing .

This should make 20 meatballs .

So get yourself a large cookie scoop and scoop out as many chunks as you can onto a small sheet tray .

I used the wrong scoop .

So four cloves of garlic peel them really quickly just by smacking them with the side of the knife like that .

And that just makes them pop out of their skin and just chop these up .

That's all gonna go in together .

OK ?

The first stage of making a tomato sauce .

The first stage of making a risotto .

The first stage of making a Ragu or a stew is this thing called the Sofrito .

Hugely hugely important .

This establishes the base of the flavor base of the sauce .

So I want some olive oil and I want about a little bit , you know , not too much .

Ok .

That's about right .

It's about 100 mils of olive oil .

I'm always staggered at the amount of olive oil that Italians use in their food .

Dare I say boss up balls now for your spaghetti , but wait , reserve about one cup of your meatball sauce to decide for extra saucing .

You never know .

People love to complain .

So chances are they'll complain about not having an extra sauce .

Wow .

So thoughtful of you season a pot of water generously with salt and bring to a boil over a medium high .

Obviously , fresh noodles will cook in like 30 seconds .

But if you're using store bought , then you'll add those guys and let them cook until El Dente , which is usually like 30 seconds under most of the come into times once it's done .

Instead of draining your pasta , recommends that you use tongues to pick up big bunches of pasta , letting it drain slightly and adding it to your saucy balls until all of your pasta has been added .

This will incorporate some of that pasta water , which is a good thing .

Matter of fact , when it's all added , maybe add a couple small splashes of extra pasta water and toss all that together till everything is coated evenly and beautifully .

And now you're ready to serve to serve .

Wind up a good portion of pasta , please it on a plate or a shallow bowl .

Add some additional sauce for those who complain and at least four meatballs per plate depending on your vibe .

So this is the Sofrito and we're gonna get that nice and hot and then I'm gonna turn it right down and I'm gonna give it 10 to 15 minutes .

Take your time over this , the longer you do this , the better the sauce is gonna taste .

I'm good .

I'll put a little bit of salt in here at the moment , but not too much start to flavor it a little bit of pepper .

And this , as I say , this is the most basic sort of a sauce you can do .

But they'd also put things in here .

If you want to make it richer , you'd put a very finely diced carrot , a couple of sticks of celery really thinly sliced and the onion , the carrot , the celery , you've got what's called the adore , the aromatic things , the things that give a really nice flavor to it .

But this is a really simple one .

So as I've said before , I think the thing I like about Italian food is their genius for making simple things , taste like a lot more than what they are just about there with .

This takes a very long time .

To make an onion soft .

The other thing you'll find is Passata , which is basically those same canned tomatoes which have been whizzed through a Passata machine which basically makes the core , the pips and the skin stay behind and everything else is pur comes out the other end .

Fiona .

Well , that was my question whether you'd taken the seeds out of the crushed tomatoes .

No , no , no .

This is a rustic thing .

They would never ever take the seeds out of the tomatoes .

If you're gonna make a tomato sauce , it's gotta scream tomato at you .

You know , or if you're gonna make something delicate , it's gotta scream , I'm so delicate at you .

But whatever you're making has got to be really clear and robust and cranky taste buds up .

You know .

What do you want people to say about your food ?

Hm .

That's nice .

Oh , wow , that's great .

Right .

So I'm just gonna stir all this and this is gonna now simmer for about 20 minutes .

This also doubles as a bit like a pizza sauce .

So pizza is a man who makes pizzas .

I'm gonna use it for pasta and you see the size of the pot , you need a really big pot for pasta filled right up because the , the pasta's gonna have lots of room to swim .

You don't want it all jammed up , stuck together like that .

And the other thing is , does anybody know what pasta water is supposed to taste like ?

It needs to be as salty as the Mediterranean , salty as the Mediterranean , which is a very salty sea .

So , um , I'm gonna put some salt into that water .

Ok .

Stir it up and have a little taste no enough .

So I know people freak out when you do this , but don't worry if you don't do that when you're cooking pasta , if you don't have that water properly seasoned , when you cook the pasta , it's gonna taste like you made porridge without salt or you're eating a boiled egg with no salt you know , completely lacking .