The most fantastic tomato sauce.

This tomato sauce. I have been thinking about this tomato sauce a lot.  I first made it last week, when I had a dinner guest cancel on me- it was what I was going to make, but when it got to the boiling pasta point, I didn't feel like it, and just made toast and ate it topped on that way.  It was so delicious that I was eating it with a spoon from the pot. I am not a huge fan of tomatoes- I don't like them raw at all, and usually prefer them blended into whatever sauce they're in, and masked by basil, and garlic, and made to taste like something entirely else. 

This tomato sauce is not like that. It is capital T Tomatoey. It's- grab onto a strand of pasta and coat with the luscious sauce-, silky, chunky, oh my goodness tomato sauce. 

I made it again tonight, to see if it was one of those culinary flukes, those "I was so hungry anything would taste delicious" moods, and it wasn't. In fact, it was even better this time, because I had pasta with it, garlic bread on the side, and a nice bottle of merlot, and best of all, my friend Paul came over to eat it with me. The sauce just shimmers in the pan, waiting for you to add the pasta to it.  I want to make this sauce over and over. I don't want to make any other tomato sauce, ever. I just want this one. 

The beauty of the sauce is in the simplicity. It has four ingredients that I almost always have in my pantry. 

It is Marcella Hazan's recipe, but I found it at one of my favorite food blogger's sites- Orangette

2 cups whole, peeled, canned plum tomatoes, chopped, with their juices (about one 28-oz. can)

5 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut in half

Salt, to taste

Combine the tomatoes, their juices, the butter, and the onion halves in a medium saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, at a very slow but steady simmer, adjusting the heat as necessary, for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free from the tomato. Stir occasionally, mashing any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and salt as needed.

Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta.

Make this. you won't regret it.