Mopping up a delicious sauce with good bread is always the best part of a pasta meal, am I right? So why not get right to the point and make this saucy appetizer – no pasta required. This recipe is so easy to make but requires just a little patience on your part. Trust me, cooking Roma tomatoes down into a jammy luscious sauce dotted with mozzarella, is definitely worth the wait. If you want, you could even do the initial roast a couple days in advance and then reheat and add the cheese just before serving. I warn you though, you won’t be able to stop eating this.
1 tbsp olive oil
12-16 Roma tomatoes
1/4 cup butter, cubed
8 garlic cloves, peeled
1/4 cup red wine
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
250g fresh mozzarella
2 tbsp balsamic
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
Preheat oven to 350F
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Coat a large baking dish (9×13) with the olive oil.
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Remove the stem end from each tomato and cut them lengthwise. Place tomatoes cut side down into the baking dish.
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Dot the tomatoes with butter and add the whole garlic cloves along with the red wine and salt and pepper.
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Place in the oven and cook for 2 hours (yes 2 hours) until the skins are charred, tomatoes have softened and much of the liquid has evaporated.
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Remove tomatoes from the oven and carefully peel the skin off each tomato and discard.
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Use a potato masher to mash the tomatoes and garlic together. Feel free to leave some larger chunks of tomato along with the other mashed bits.
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Break the mozzarella into small bite sized pieces and scatter evenly over the sauce. Return to the oven to bake for another 10min.
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Remove from oven and drizzle with olive oil and scatter fresh basil over the top.
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Go to town with a baguette.
TIP: If you want to make ahead you can prepare this dish up to step 6. When you are ready to serve, simply increase the cooking time in step 7 to 20min and continue.