I love tomatoes.You say tomato, I say… tomato sauce

I love tomatoes. During the summer when the local farms are selling luscious ripe tomatoes at the Frisco Farmers Market I simply cannot get enough tomatoes. Growing up in a Mexican American home tomatoes were pretty much the only vegetable (I know, I know, tomatoes are actually a fruit and not a vegetable) in our diet. Make that tomato sauce. You know those little 8 oz. cans marked tomato sauce on the bottom shelf in the canned tomato section of the grocery store? I cannot remember a time when we did not have stacks and stacks of those little cans in our pantry growing up.With 5 boys to feed, those little cans were a quick, easy and cheap way for my parents to make Mexican rice, pasta sauce and, among other things, a dish that is still a favorite of my brothers to this day. There is no real name for this dish. In my family it is simply called shellies. It starts with the browning (with a touch of black) of some uncooked pasta, typically small shell pasta and/or tubbetini pasta, in a saucepan with some vegetable oil. Once the pasta is sufficiently browned, a couple of those little cans of tomato sauce are added and cooked down a little bit before adding water to the pan to create a soup-like consistency. A very generous amount of garlic salt is then added along with some ground pepper, and a couple chicken bouillon cubes, then the pan simmers for a few minutes before serving. This was comfort food for our family.

Looking back, this dish is actually a great cooking lesson. It starts with the browning of the feature ingredient, in this case the pasta. Then once the pasta is browned the tomato sauce is added. This is the flavor base and it also serves to deglaze the pan. In order to elevate the very humble tomato sauce it is cooked down thereby concentrating its flavor. This is not unlike a French chef delgazing the pan in which she browned some meat with wine to dissolve the browned bits at the bottom of the pan and then reducing the wine to concentrate its flavor. The addition of the water and bouillon cubes to create a flavorful broth is much like the French chef adding stock to a dish for a rich flavor. Ask any chef why food tastes better at a restaurant and they will tell you that they are not afraid to season their dishes aggressively. Translation: salt. Restaurant chefs use a good amount of salt in the dishes they cook because it really draws out the flavor of the ingredients. This dish is no exception with the liberal use of garlic salt. Lastly, the dish simmers to bring all the flavors together and while that happens the pasta releases some of its starch into the broth to enrich the flavor and keep the consistency tight. This dish goes to show you that with the right technique even the most modest ingredients can be elevated to something tasty and that is a very good lesson for all of us during these tough economic times.