The woman in red - Tomato sauce

If you see a naked person in the street, you probably call the police. I would do the same if I got pasta without sauce.
I have nothing against nudity. I actually enjoy it very much.
But most of the times it is sexier to get the clothes off than facing a body that has no adornment on it.

For G. Simmel ("Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms", https://archive.org/stream/sociologyofgeorg030082mbp/sociologyofgeorg030082mbp_djvu.txt pg. 338-344), the adornment "intensifies or enlarges the impression of the personality by operating as a sort of radiation emanating from it". He makes a distinction between a dress and a fancy one. I have the idea a good sauce must be something like the latter. Even the most simple pasta can get sexy and appealing if it comes with the right sauce.

So, this week, let's see some basic about how to dress our favourite dish.

Today it's tomato sauce, sugo.

Yield: sauce for 4 servings.

• 1 onion (here 2 shallots)
• 1 carrot
• 1 rib of celery (which I couldn't get from the shop, so we can stick with a piece of celeriac, the root of celery)
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 50ml extra-virgin olive oil
•  2 cans of peeled tomatoes (around 800gr)
• 3gr of salt

Thinly chop the vegetables (brunoise).

Put the onion and the garlic in a pot with the oil at a very low fire.

When the onion starts to soften (around 5 minutes), add the celery.

Wait a couple of minutes and add the carrot.

Wait until the onion is golden, approximatively 15 minutes. This is soffritto.The Maillard reaction will ensure a sweet, complex taste to the sauce and you will not need to add sugar to sweeten it or to take away the acidic flavor of the tomato. Unless you burnt something of course. In that case, you should start again.

Add the peeled tomatoes and take a book or something else to keep yourself busy.

Occasionally, stir. This process will be very long. If you know what sous-vide cooking is, well, this is a reduction with a similar philosophy. Keep the fire at the lowest temperature, cover the pot with a lid with just a little opening to let the steam get out.

When the tomatoes start to break apart (40 minutes
or so) , you can use an immersion mixer
and blend the sauce.

Once the sauce starts to thicken (25 more minutes), add the salt. The sauce will
lose the remaining moisture. You can now take away the lid and stop reading the book.
Stir often to avoid burnings.

When the sauce is very thick (20 minutes), it's ready. It will be like a tight mini-skirt to your dish.

A couple of basil leaves and some Parmigiano Reggiano will do the rest on the pasta. They'll be jewels.
As tailoring this dress takes so long, you'd probably prefer to make a lot of it and store frozen in jars.