Tonight while your friends are all waiting for a booth at Staten Island's newest small plates restaurant or trying to explain to an angry hot air balloonist what a "Groupon" is, you'll be at home. Alone. The trick to riding out Valentine's Day solo is to stay busy—not the normal way you stay busy all the time so as to keep yourself from stopping to feel something—you just need a task. A saucy task. Nothing soothes the soul and tames the sads of a cold winter's night quite like a giant bowl of heady spaghetti. So give the "Wild Heart" YouTube page a rest and follow this recipe for our Sacred Gravy.
The First Temptation of Sauce (not to be confused with the Last Temptation of Sauce, an excellent film directed by C.F. Boyardee) is that when shopping for ingredients, you may be swayed by the siren song of pre-made slurry. This is understandable: large tins of tomatoes are intimidating when they're all staring up at you from your basket. Garlic sometimes has those prickly edges on them that hurt, and onions literally make you cry.
"Oh look, Rao's Homemade is only $9 for a 24 oz jar," you say. "I could just trade all this for one of those and my life would be so much easier." Yeah? Setting aside the obvious concern for all the Italian grandmas on the spaghetti sauce assembly lines (Chairman Rao is a cruel master), $9 is pretty steep for a forgettable product that doesn't keep well the next day; the sauce you'll be making only gets better as the days go by. And besides, you want this to be a night to remember—you don't want to forget You, do you?
So you'll need
1 28oz can San Marzano tomatoes, whole & peeled (these are an indulgence, but are tasty and worth it and our Mom never, ever bought them despite their cheery, elongated tomato appearance so LOOK AT US NOW, MA)
1 28oz can San Marzano tomatoes, crushed
1 16 oz can of tomatoes, diced
1 16 oz can of tomato sauce
1 large yellow onion
1 tiny tin of tomato paste
5-7 cloves of garlic
2-3 medium sized carrots
Olive oil
Salt, pepper
Cayenne pepper
Oregano, basil, thyme
1 tablespoon of sugar
Shredded parmesan
Red wine (a Barbera is nice but any red will do)
1 lb of spaghetti (or penne, whatever)
For those who insist on meat (and we occasionally do), grab a few links of your favorite butcher-made (the guy wearing plastic gloves behind the Whole Foods meat counter will do fine) spicy/sweet Italian sausage, and one small-to-medium-sized bone-in pork chop. All of this is delicious but it is not necessarily Healthy, which brings us to
Simple Solo Salad Ingredients
1 bunch of kale (shut up)
1 lemon
1 carrot
Olive oil
Salt/lots of fresh pepper
Balsamic vinegar
Shredded Parmesan
Chop the onion first, because the garlic gets sticky on the cutting board and you'll want plenty of time to savor The Time When Your Hands Didn't Smell Like Garlic. Cut the onion down the middle, peel back the first layer or so, then chop off the non-hairy portion. Then make horizontal cuts towards the hairy side, then vertical cuts, then chop it. This saves time, looks nifty, and would surely impress your guests if you had guests.
Perfect diced onions in 3 easy steps (Gothamist)
Next dice the carrots (whose sweetness will balance out the acidity of the tomatoes and add texture to the sauce) and finally the garlic. Uncork the wine and pour yourself a glass, because now the act of making gravy has become a life-or-death mission to not burn the garlic.
Burning garlic is fine—it happens. But leaving the burned garlic in the sauce instead of starting over with new garlic and oil is an abomination. You might as well poop in a hot tub or strangle an American eagle with a strand of flaming garlic. Every single bite you take of your Burned Garlic Disgrace Gravy will bludgeon your mouth like a filthy toothache. You will make Chairman Rao laugh and laugh. Please don't use burned garlic.
In a large sauce pot, pour four seconds worth of olive oil and set the heat to low. Get the oil decently hot (when ready, it should look like Alex Mack flowing underneath a door). While this is happening, arrange your garlic atop your knife so you can chuck it in without delay. Tell your onions and carrots to say their goodbyes.
Veggies at the ready
Our method: toss the garlic in, then pick up the pot and swirl it around, keeping it right above the flame. The intoxicating garlic fumes will make you want to pick up your wine but PAY ATTENTION. Keep swirling for several minutes, and at the first hint of light-brownness, throw the carrots & onions in. Play it safe: if you think it's not quite done yet, it's done enough.
Remain calm, this garlic is done
Continuously stir this mixture with a wooden spoon. Once the onions are translucent, throw in all of the tomatoes and the sauce. Add a few shakes of the oregano, thyme, and basil, a liberal dose of fresh pepper, and a half-dozen or so shakes of salt along with the sugar. For a spicier sauce, be generous with the cayenne. If you're eating veggie sauce, you can relax with your wine, but if you're eating meat, get a saucepan hot with some oil in it, and brown the sausages, breaking them up into pieces as they cook then tossing them into the sauce pot.
With the pan still hot, brown the pork chop (seasoned with salt & pepper) on both sides, but don't come close to cooking it all the way through (that's the sauce's job) and toss it into the sauce. If you're fancy like our fishing buddy Mickey, you'll deglaze that meat pan by adding some of your wine, then throw the mess into your sauce.
Hungry yet? Depending on how disintegrated you want your pork chop (total obliteration can take 2-3+ hours, but meaty flecks will start splintering off after around 90 minutes) it's going to be awhile, so why not nibble on your sensible salad? Chop the kale into manageable pieces and the carrot into doubloons and combine in a tupperware tub. Splash in the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, give your pepper grinder a good 10 turns, and add salt. Squeeze half a lemon into the mixture, allowing the juice to run into the cuts and abrasions on your hands as a reminder that you're alive. Throw the lid on and give it a shake.
Squeeze your loneliness away
Add cheese to taste. Save some for when the pasta's ready. Turn the sauce to low heat and let it simmer. This is when the Dark Magic happens, and it takes time, so find a movie on Netflix that appropriately sets the mood. May we recommend 1996's Vibrations, starring Christina Applegate and, uh, James Marshall? Here's the IMDB synopsis:
Rising rock star, TJ Cray, gets the shot of a lifetime, an audition with a A & R man. On the way into the city, a carload of drunks smash into his car, severing his hands. He drops out of the business and becomes a homeless drunk. Cray wakes up to a pulsing beat in an abandoned warehouse, where a "rave" party is in full action. To his rescue comes Anamika, a computer artist, who takes him outside for fresh air [Ed: Anamika is actually accosted by two dudes with switchblades and is saved by TJ taking a knife to his rubber hand. But yeah, "fresh air," whatever.] They become friends and eventually reinvent TJ's career.
With the help of friends, they replace his hands with prosthetics and design a metallic cyber looking suit. TJ quickly becomes an overnight sensation, known as Cyberstorm. The finale is a dramatic scenario where TJ has to make crucial decisions about his new life. Written by Joe Miller
Perfect! Take a seat, grip your wine, and let the Cinema melt your troubles away, pausing occasionally to stir and taste your creation. The 104 minute runtime is a goodly number to allow your sauce to gel. For those seeking Total Pork Chop Annihilation, watch Heaven's Gate.
This is the pivotal moment in the film
Resist the urge to shove your face through the television? Good. In the last 10 minutes of the film, start boiling water in a large sauce pot. Cook the spaghetti until its cooked—this is achieved by actually tasting the spaghetti, not throwing it against the wall or whatever College Humor told you to do.
Some folks believe that the pasta should be mixed with some olive oil and kept separate from the sauce, allowing diners to apply their desired amount of sauce. But this neglects the tremendous soaking properties of pasta. To deny Pasta and Sauce their long-awaited union is cruel. Throw the pasta into the sauce, and stir. Breathing in the succulent air, your hallucination should look like this:
What dreams are made of
Spoon it out and have at it. Toss some cheese on (or IN the sauce if you're crazy) and start eating.
Simple solo salad!
Upon returning from the outside world, your roommate will likely marvel at how fantastic your apartment's aroma is. Don't point out that he smells like cologne and Letdown. Instead, give him a bowl of pasta and put the leftovers in a tub (taking care to separate the stray pasta from the sauce—it was still worth it to mix, OK?). You'll have enough to eat well until next Valentine's Day.
Previously in the series: Make Sacrilious Crab Cakes
