Sunday Sauce

So I promised my Sunday sauce recipe. Everyone and his grandmother (usually literally the grandmother) says they make the best tomato sauce, and really who's going to argue with a nice old Italian grandma? The wonderful thing about sauce though is that you can experiment with just about anything in the kitchen and have fun with it.
My basic sauce is fresh plum tomatoes (10-20) often plus a can of San Marzano tomatoes if I don't have enough fresh. Blanche the tomatoes in boiling water for a few minutes until the skins start to split then douse in cold water. At this point if you have a food mill you can run the tomatoes through it to remove the seeds, peels and stems, but unless you're making a lot more than I do (family of three in NYC house = not that much storage and only so much sauce we can eat) peeling and cutting the stems by hand is not too hard. I don't bother taking seeds out myself, but cut the tomatoes in half and scoop them out if you feel so inclined.
I then in a large pot (dutch oven or gallon+ saucepan) heat a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over medium heat and then sweat a cup of chopped onions (I like cippolinis, sometimes sweet onions, and I've been known to add shallots too) and a quarter cup of minced garlic (unless I've roasted garlic) for several minutes until they glisten and start to yellow (not brown). Toss in several twists of fresh ground pepper, a pinch or two of sea salt, and stir up. Add a healthy splash of red wine (open a bottle to serve with dinner or leftover wine is generally okay too but absolutely not cooking wine, never cook with anything that started out unsuitable for drinking) to deglaze the pan. Add the tomatoes and reduce to medium low heat. Let simmer and crush up the tomatoes using a wooden spoon or other nonreactive implement. Add a couple handfuls of fresh basil leaves and roasted garlic (mash that up too). Let simmer for a couple of hours and season to taste.
For controversy, discuss sweetening sauce. Tomatoes are acidic so there's nothing wrong with adding a bit of sugar or other sweetener if you think it necessary. Riper tomatoes are sweeter and will need less sweetening. Personally I'll use a touch of honey if I want it sweeter, but last Sunday's batch needed none.
Enjoy the sauce with the rest of the wine. I used Val di Suga Brunello, and drank more of it with the seared tuna I made the same night. Val di Suga is wonderful like most Brunello, and they do not even have a website that I can find. If pairing red wine with fish sounds like blasphemy, it is not entirely. Received wisdom is that red wine and fish creates an unpleasant aftertaste, but it isn't always true. The truth is more subtle, and the chemistry is now understood to be a reaction of iron with fish oils. Red wines without iron can be drunk with fish, and chelating agents will reduce the iron content and the fishy aftertaste regardless. Organic acids like citrus and vinegar are chelating agents, which explains why lemon or beurre blanc (butter blended with vinegar) make fish taste better, and why acidic white wines pair well.
Finally, I've found some practical use for that biochemical engineering degree that cost me so much time and money!