Christian Petroni’s 8-Hour Marinara Sauce

3 quarts

2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
2 onions
1 large carrot
12 garlic cloves
1 (10-pound) can peeled tomatoes
1 tablespoon crushed red chile flakes
2.25 ounces (½ of a 4.5-ounce tube) tomato paste
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon sugar

1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat your oil on medium. On the side of a box grater with the largest holes, grate your onion and add it to the pot. Grate your carrot the same way, then roughly hand-chop the grated carrots. Add to the pot. Finely chop the garlic, then add.

2. Turn down your heat to low and cook very slowly for 4 hours.

3. Using a food mill or mashed potato ricer, run the whole can of tomatoes through directly into the pot the soffritto is cooking in. (If you don’t have a food mill or ricer, it’s totally fine to empty the can in a bowl and break up and smash all the tomatoes by hand.)

4. Add the chile flakes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, and sugar (adjust based on the sweetness of your tomatoes). Cook uncovered on low, stirring every 5 to 10 minutes, for 4 more hours, until it’s deeper and richer in color and you can see the fat separating from the sauce.

Storage: Keeps for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator and up to 2 months in the freezer.