Sophia Loren Spaghetti Sauce Recipe - Authentic Neapolitan Tomato Sauce

Hello everyone, Grandma here. I recently came across my Sophia Loren cookbook from 1972 called In the Kitchen with Love. Sophia Loren is often quoted as saying, everything you see I owe to spaghetti, which originated from a Life Magazine article in 1961. So I thought it would be fun to make her spaghetti with tomato sauce recipe. In the book, she says that this is the most traditional recipe, the one handed down from mother to daughter for hundreds of years in every Neapolitan household. So this is authentic tomato sauce from Naples, Italy, where my father's family was from. It is nearly identical to how my mother used to make her sauce, but she always used to make much more amounts at a time. The book says for the sauce you need, three tablespoons olive oil for every two people, one clove of garlic for every two people, one cup of canned peeled tomatoes for every two people, or an equal amount of the flesh or freshly peeled and sieved tomatoes. A few basil leaves, only use dry basil when fresh leaves are not available. A pinch of salt, half teaspoon of sugar. Today I'm making the sauce for four people, so I'll be using six tablespoons of olive oil, two cloves of garlic, two cups of canned peeled tomatoes, about six basil leaves, and one teaspoon of sugar. My mom always used canned whole tomatoes, but crushed them up before using them. So I'm going to crush these up. It takes a little while to crush them up this way. So now I'm going to crush them with my hands because I'll be here too long. The reason why she used the canned whole tomatoes was because she said they tasted better. I'm using a saucepan and the first thing I have to do is add the olive oil and the garlic. And now I have to put it to medium heat and give it a stir. I have to cook this till the olive oil boils and the garlic blanches. Now it's time to add the other ingredients. I'm going to add the sugar, added the sugar, and now I'm going to add the tomatoes. Give this a stir. And now I'm adding my basil. I'm going to bring this back up to a boil. Now I'm going to lower the heat to medium low and let this simmer for a half an hour. This is what the sauce looks like when it's been cooked for a half an hour. You can see it got a lot thicker. This is my vintage pasta bowl from the 1950s. I drained my pasta and now I'm going to pour it in, put it in the bowl. It's piping hot. You can see the steam coming up. And now I'm going to just stir my sauce and now I'm going to pour it over. Now we're going to top it with grated cheese. And it's a tablespoon per person. And now I stir this all together. I'm just going to toss it now. I want to make sure all the pasta is covered with the sauce. How's it taste, Grandpa? Let you know in a minute, Ma. It's absolutely delicious. It tastes like an Italian restaurant. You did a superb job, Ma. This is better than any takeout. It's very flavorful. The sauce is very rich and not too spicy. I like that it's simple ingredients. It definitely tastes like authentic tomato sauce from Italy. It tastes nothing like sauce from a jar. I'm happy you found this cookbook, Grandma. I am too, Grandpa. This is so good. The difference with my mom's sauce is that she used onions and she didn't use as much olive oil. But this is delicious and it's very, very similar.