Last Night's Dinner # 47: Snapper Livornese

If you're intimidated with cooking fish, this is a perfect dish to test out the waters.

It's such an easy dish to make. First you make a basic tomato sauce - very very easy to make, which by the way is the best non-bottled/canned tomato sauce I've ever had. I'll post that below because it's definitely a keeper. Make a double batch and freeze it for future use. There's another recipe that uses the same sauce with canned tuna (get the good stuff) and spaghetti - dinner can't be any easier than that. You also get to crush whole peeled tomatoes - I love crushing whole tomatoes in my hand (I hate getting squirted with tomato juice).



By the way, I found caper berries at Whole Foods by the capers. They taste very similar, except the berries are obviously bigger and a lot less salty. I couldn't find Gaeta olives but sources say you can substitute with Kalamata.

I'm not going to bother typing out the recipe because there are tons of other sites that already have it posted, so I'll simply provide a few links:
labellecuisine.com
recipes.celsius1414.com
astray.com

Basic Tomato Sauce
Prep: 10 mins
Total: 40 mins
Difficulty: Easy



You'll need:
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 Spanish onion, chopped in 1/4-inch dice
4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, or 1 tablespoon dried
1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
Two 28-ounce cans of tomatoes, crushed by hand and juices reserved
Salt to taste

In a 3-quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown, about 8 to ten 10 minutes. Add the thyme and the carrot and cook 5 minutes more, until the carrot is quite soft. Add the tomatoes and juice and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes until as thick as hot cereal. Season with salt and serve. This sauce holds one week in the refrigerator or up to six months in the freezer. Makes 4 cups.

Don't be shy with the salt, it makes such a difference in the sauce.