PROCESS:
Red Sauce is one of the Five Mother Sauces. There are as many versions of tomato sauce as there are cooks who make it.
The tomatoes may be made fresh or canned. Use fresh tomatoes when tomatoes are in season and canned when they are not. Roma or Plum tomatoes are best for making sauce because their meat to skin and seed ratio is very good. Your own home grown fresh tomatoes are always the best!
Season the tomato sauce with garlic, celery and onion olive oil, season with salt and pepper and herbs such as oregano, or basil
If you need to thicken tomato sauce, use tomato paste. You may also buy pre-made tomato sauce in a can and doctor it up yourself… For a chunky fresh tomato sauce, check out the tomato basil sauce recipe in this sauce chapter…
To make fresh tomato sauce from scratch:
It is generally best to core, skin and seed the tomatoes with a paring knife…
Remove the core and cut a shallow X on top of the tomato. Drop the tomatoes in boiling water and cook for 2 minutes remove from the boiling water and cool in an ice bath, this makes it easy to remove the skin
Cut the tomato in half and squeeze the seeds into a bowl. Strain the seeds to get all the juice to add to the sauce – discard the seeds. Cut the tomatoes into pieces… they are ready to make into sauce
For the Sauce:
Heat olive oil add garlic, onion, celery, cook til tender, deglaze with white wine, turn the heat down to low, add tomatoes and juice, season with salt & pepper and dried herbs such as oregano and thyme. Simmer to allow the herbs to wake up in the cooking process
After ten minutes:
the sauce should be chunky and rustic
you could hit this with fresh basil and pour it over pasta right now.
or Puree with an immersion blender
This is a basic tomato or red sauce
The best way to clean an emersion blender is... place it in a bowl of soapy water and blend
Marinara sauce for pasta
Add White wine, S&P, Parmesan Cheese and fresh basil when using fresh herbs be sure to add them at the end of cooking process so the flavor stays vibrant
Cardinal Sauce:
We could also make this into a sauce called cardinal… by adding some bechamel sauce…
Sauce a la vodka:
Heat olive oil, sauté onions and garlic. add vodka and flame… Now we’re cookin’. Add marinara and béchamel sauces and stir together
The pasta-bilities are endless…
Check out the sauce chapter of this cookbook for other great sauce ideas
INGREDIENTS:
3 pounds Roma Tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup Celery, diced
1/4 cup Onion, diced
1 Tablespoon Garlic, minced
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
2 tablespoons fresh basil
tomato paste, optional