I bought a ton of tomatoes yesterday to make a sauce today. My plan was to reduce down the tomatoes, add some red wine (we have a good rich cabernet that I planned to use), garlic, onions, fresh oregano, and portabello, and let it cook, but I’m open to any suggestions. We have a bunch of ingredients here - I do like to cook, so we’re pretty well stocked - so I can probably find anything that’s suggested.
This is only the second time I’ve made sauce from fresh tomatoes, and we weren’t overly impressed with my first attempt to do this last year, but it’s the perfect weather for fresh tomato sauce, so I want to give it a chance.
I would remove the skins, but otherwise it sounds like a good base. There is an inexpensive hand-crank tomato processor on the market that removes skins and seeds. When you use the sauce later, you will probably have to freshen up the flavors, particularly the herbs, which lose their potentcy upon cooking.
Oh, yeah, I’m getting the skins off now, and I’ll core and seed 'em before I start reducing.
Thanks for the tip about the herbs - I didn’t realize that - no wonder my sauce tasted so bland upon reheating.
Ah, well. My MIL gave me a big bag of oregano (ElzaHub was driving home with it yesterday, hoping he wouldn’t get pulled over :D), so I’ve got enough to last for awhile.
In addition to the comment about the herbs I would also not leave the portobellas in the suace if you are going to reduce it for a period of time as you will overcook the mushrooms. Most red sauces don’t need prolonged reducing especially if you are seeding and coring the tomatoes first. I would saute the mushrooms in some olive oil, remove from the heat, reduce the red wine in the pan you just used for the mushrooms , then add the tomatoes, herbs, and mushrooms, heat up and serve. If you want to reduce the tomatoes then do so separately and then add the herbs and mushrooms in at the end.
Saute the garlic and onion in olive (or canola) oil before adding them to the sauce. If someone is making a meat sauce (I note that Elza is not), sauteing the meat and then using the drippings therefrom to saute the garlic and onion works as well.
Add a tiny amount of fennel seed to the simmering sauce for the “Italian sausage” flavor which some people like.
Basil is also excellent along with the oregano in spicing the sauce. It imparts a mildly sweet flavor to the sauce, counterating the bitterness that many spices, including oregano, tend to impart.
While cabernet holds its flavor well on cooking, the general rule is that the more odious-for-drinking a wine is, the better it works as a cooking wine, as good drinking wines tend to have delicate flavors that are lost with the evaporation of the volatiles (alcohol, water, etc.), while the rotgut that, after one taste, you feel like you want to contribute to the wino who panhandles down at that corner, tends to have its flavor mellow-ized by the cooking process and imparts a pleasant taste to the sauce. Note that this is not true for the fortified wines such as burgundy, port, and some sherries; being stronger, they retain their flavor well in the cooking process.
Thanks for the wine tips! Unfortunately, the cabernet’s the only bottle we have right now, and it’s Sunday, so I can’t send ElzaHub out to pick up a bottle of Burgundy. I LOVE cooking with burgundy, though, so I think I’m going to have to keep a bottle on hand.
Keeping all the tips handy - we’ll see how this turns out.
My advice, dubious as it is, would vary depending on how you intend to use the sauce. If it’s to feed a lot of people you can play up the freshness of the tomatoes by cooking them the least amount of time. This really requires goregeous, dead ripe tomatoes but they become center stage with the wine, herbs, etc. used just as accents. Saute the 'shrooms first in good olive oil until slightly soft, then add chopped onions and garlic and cook on low heat until soft. Add a glug of your wine and let it cook down, gently until about half of the liquid has evaporated. Then at almost the last minute add chopped, well-drained tomatoes and heat through. If you’re using fresh herbs, add them with the tomatoes. Overcooked herbs can become bitter and its kind of waste of their fresh flavor anyway.
For a low-and-slow reduced tomato sauce, just saute the flavor additions first ('shrooms, garlic, etc.) then deglaze with wine and add the tomatoes. Immediately knock the heat back to a simmer. Give it at least a few hours, with just a stir now and then. Even well drained tomatoes hold a lot of water so it takes time to evaporate off. If using fresh oregano and basil, don’t add them until the last half hour or so. They’ll still diffuse a lot of flavor through the sauce but not turn dark, bitter and icky.
But enthusiastic agreement for adding a titch of fennel seed when sauteeing the onions and garlic.
Definitely don’t forget the fresh basil, add a couple tablespoons of sugar right at the beginning to counteract the acid in the tomatoes, and add some red bell peppers–they hold up well in cooking and complement the tomato better than green bells, I think. If I don’t have CheapredwineTM to make spaghetti sauce I’ll use a good dark beer instead, it really works well (and is coughcheaper**cough ** than wine) and has an earthy flavor that I love. I especially prefer beer when making cacciatore from scratch.
I would hold off on the sugar until you are about done with the cooking. Tomatoes can taste bitter when cooked for more than an hour, but not always. You can always add the sugar later. Another spicing hint is to add a very small pinch of cinnamon. It’s a powerful spice, so a tiny bit goes a long way. It’s particularly good if you are going to turn this into a meat sauce, but can be added later.
Nobody has mentioned this I think…but it works for me.
In addition to red wine, and even if you don’t add wine, add a half a cup of grated paremsan cheese to the sauce. Also, after you drain the noodles, add a small amount of grated cheese and some of the sauce to the noodles as well before you add the sauce and serve.
I made a tomato and meat(minced lamb) sauce yesterday; on a whim, I decided to throw in a couple of chopped anchovies when I put the meat in to brown; made for quite a nice rich sauce.
