Tomato and maybe salt — that’s all you need or want in passata, the building block of so much Italian cooking, from pizzas to pasta sauces. The tomatoes are peeled, deseeded and then “passed” (passata, language fans) through a sieve to produce a juicy sauce. It can be chunky or silky, and sometimes includes acidity regulators (normally citric acid) and herbs, but basically it’s all about the tomato. So as you can imagine, the result will be only as good as the quality of the tomatoes you put in.
Sure, by the time you’ve added onion and garlic, cumin, paprika and chilli powder, boiled it in a huge vat with mince and kidney beans, and added extra chill sauce for luck, you might