Recipes, like ingredients, travel. This pasta sauce travelled via my friend Jane from Nice where she learned to cook it one New Year's Eve. It can be made all year round by substituting three cans of whole tomatoes when tasty fresh ones are not available.
Makes enough for 6 generous serves
1 Take 12 big fat juicy tomatoes and dice them. Sweat them down in their own juices over a moderate heat. Pass them trough a mouli or blitz them and sieve to remove the skin and pips.
2 Return this paste to the pan adding 5 chopped garlic cloves and 5 dried bird's eye chillies.
3 Simmer gently to introduce the garlic and chilli, then, judging by eye, double the volume of the tomato sauce by adding an equal quantity of olive oil. Mix, although this will not integrate totally and the sauce will be oily. It's meant to be.
