There must be billions of blogs and posts about making food and secret recipes and the like. I have no issue with that. I love food. Here’s an easy recipe for foundation tomato sauce that’s tremendously savory and versatile canvas.

I use canned crushed tomatoes – my brand of choice these days is Cento. If tomatoes are in season, then of course I use fresh tomatoes but still fortify the sauce with something canned. The canned tomatoes are guaranteed to be packing with tomatoeness and they have a tendency to form crusts on the side of the pan, which have a similar effect as fond from meats when folded back into the sauce. Still, they require a bit of rework to remove the tinniness and achieve something wooden spoon-lickingly savory.

I slice and dice some onions very thinly and saute them in a substantial amount of olive oil. I’m looking for them to eventually dissipate into the sauce. Add some garlic after a bit, throw in a pinch of cumin and pul biber, let that get fragrant then dump in the tomatoes. Stir in some umami bombs – a great and easy idea I read in a cookbook: a few shakes of soy sauce, a couple drips of fish sauce (or anchovies would be great) and a teaspoonish of marmite.

Cook everything down and start adding a few splashes of chicken stock. Keep simmering it down and refortifying it with more stock. It’s like risotto but not as much stirring. Do this as many times as you want but with at least two cycles. I am usually multi-tasking during this step so I keep doing this until my other task is done. If you plan on keeping it going for a while maybe throw in a spare chicken bone or two.

Once you’re ready throw in whatever finishers you would like. Maybe a dash of oregano or thyme (rosemary I would have put in from the beginning), choppings of parsley, and some thinly sliced scallions would be nice. I also like some chopped capers for the salty, vinegary bite. Warm everything through and then use for whatever purpose – dipping sauce for bread; some wok-fired shrimp finished with the sauce; you know, anywhere you use tomato sauce.