The Sunday Sauce

The Sunday sauce is an Italian institution. It is not a specific recipe so much as a ritual - a slow-cooked tomato preparation that fills the house with smell for most of the morning, made from the best ingredients available, served to whoever turns up at the table. The point is not efficiency. The point is doing it properly.

The Sunday Sauce bundle has everything the ritual requires. Two tins of La Carmela San Marzano DOP peeled tomatoes - grown in the Agro Nocerino-Sarnese, the legally protected volcanic plain south of Naples where San Marzano tomatoes earn their designation through provenance and process rather than just a label. Low acid, thick flesh, almost no seeds, a natural sweetness built into the variety by the soil and the climate. These are the tomatoes the sauce is built around.

Two packs of Voiello Spaghetti carry the sauce to the table. Voiello has been producing pasta in Torre Annunziata since 1879, using high-protein durum wheat including Senatore Cappelli - an ancient Italian variety with genuine flavour depth - extruded through bronze dies and slow-dried to produce pasta that holds al dente and tastes of wheat. The starchy cooking water it produces is part of what makes the finished dish.

Piccardo & Savore Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Liguria ties everything together - as the base for the soffritto, as the finish drizzled over at the table, and as the ingredient that makes the sauce shine rather than just sit there.

Two tins of San Marzano and two packs of spaghetti will feed a table generously. Bring a good appetite and enough time to do it right.

Best for: Sunday family lunch, slow-cooked tomato sauce, spaghetti al pomodoro, and anyone ready to make it properly.