This specific preparation — Hazan calls it her "tomato sauce with onion and butter" — became one of the most shared recipes in food writing after Amanda Hesser published it in the New York Times in 2011. Its fame rests on the paradox of its simplicity: three ingredients producing a sauce that professional chefs at restaurants worldwide have confirmed is better than far more complex preparations.
Hazan's most famous recipe — butter, onion, and canned tomato, cooked for 45 minutes, onion discarded — is not simple because it is easy. It is simple because every element that could distract from the pure tomato-butter interaction has been eliminated. The butter carries the tomato's fat-soluble aromatic compounds; the onion flavours the butter during cooking without dominating it; the 45-minute cook concentrates the tomatoes' sugars and acids while the butter's milk proteins caramelise slightly against the hot liquid. The result is one of the most perfect sauces in any tradition.
- **Canned whole tomatoes:** Not crushed, not diced — whole, peeled tomatoes crushed by hand. The hand-crushing leaves irregular pieces that produce a sauce with textural variation. [VERIFY] Hazan's specification - **Butter:** A generous amount — approximately 5 tablespoons per 800g can of tomatoes. Not olive oil. The butter's fat carries the tomato's fat-soluble aromatic compounds (linalool, geraniol, hexanal) more efficiently than olive oil and adds its own lactic and Maillard notes - **Onion:** Half a yellow onion, peeled but left in a single piece. It flavours the sauce throughout the 45-minute cook, then is removed and discarded. It gives without taking - **The cook:** 45 minutes at a steady, gentle bubble — not a boil, not a simmer so gentle that nothing happens. The tomato's water evaporates; the sugars concentrate; the acids round; the butter integrates Decisive moment: The moment at 45 minutes when the sauce has changed from bright red-orange to a deeper, more complex colour, and the butter has fully integrated — no longer visible as separate fat droplets but incorporated throughout the sauce. Stir the sauce and taste: the raw tomato acidity should be gone, replaced by a round, slightly sweet, buttery depth. Sensory tests: **Sight at completion:** Deeper colour than the raw canned tomato — a brick red rather than the bright orange-red of the raw can. A slight sheen from the integrated butter. **Smell:** The volatile top notes of raw tomato (hexanal, cis-3-hexenal — the "green" smell) should have cooked off, leaving a complex, sweet, slightly caramelised tomato smell. **Taste:** Round, slightly sweet, with balanced acidity. No raw tomato note. Hazan writes that the sauce should taste finished — it should require no adjustment.
Hazan