How to Prepare the Old-School Tomato Sauce From the Prison Dinner Scene in ‘Goodfellas’

In his wonderful culinary video series “Binging with Babish“, filmmaker Andrew Rea moved away from the innocence of Ross’s stolen sandwich from Friends and instead Rea focused on hard time being done by wiseguys. Specifically, the old-school tomato sauce prepared by Paulie (Paul Sorvino) and Vinnie (Charles Scorsese) during the classic prison dinner scene in the excellent Goodfellas.

Say what you want about gangsters – the garroting, the cocaine use, the shooting-a-guy-in-his-foot-for-no-reason – the guys know how to eat, even in prison. Follow along as we make old-school Sunday gravy, and please, try not to piss off Tommy.

The prison dinner scene from Goodfellas