Most often cooked with
Garlic
Tomato
Parmesan
Bread
Onion
Simple tomato sauce
Stock
Wine vinegarRecipes with basil
Basil Pesto
Basil, pine nuts, garlic and cheese pounded to a coarse sauce, kept cold throughout so the leaves stay green instead of bruising brown.
Classic Margherita Pizza
Three toppings, nothing hidden — this is the pizza that shows whether your dough is any good.
Minestrone
A chunky vegetable soup built on a slow soffritto, with beans and small pasta simmered in the broth so it thickens as it stands.
Pasta alla Norma
Fried aubergine folded through a simple tomato sauce with torn basil and salted ricotta, which is the ingredient the dish stands or falls on.
Pork and Fennel Meatballs
Pork mince bound with a milk and bread panade and toasted fennel seed, browned in a pan and finished in tomato sauce.
Roast Tomato Soup
Tomatoes roasted hard with garlic until the edges blacken, then blitzed, so the flavour concentrates instead of thinning out in a pan of stock.
Salted Tomato Salad
Ripe tomatoes salted twenty minutes ahead, then dressed with the juice that draws out of them rather than plain oil.
Simple Tomato Sauce
Tinned tomatoes crushed by hand and cooked slowly with garlic until the oil splits back out, which is when the sauce is done.
