Créole

Tomato sauce with onion, pepper and a long pull of heat. The vegetables stay in pieces here — straining it would take away the point.

700 g — ripe tomatoes

150 g — onion

100 g — celery

6 g — cayenne

12 g — garlic

1 pc — bay leaf

2 pc — thyme

30 ml — olive oil

6 g — salt

Sweat the onion, celery and chilli in oil until soft but not coloured, about ten minutes.

Add the tomatoes, garlic and herbs and cook thirty minutes uncovered. Uncovered matters: the lid keeps the water in and you end up with soup.

Taste for heat at the end, not the start. Chilli keeps releasing capsaicin as it cooks, and a sauce seasoned at minute five is too hot at minute forty.