Best Italian American Tomato Sauce Recipe

Nys Aqyla    9/04/2022    Italian-American , Tomato Sauces   

A great ketchup starts with great ingredients, simply cooks slowly and slowly until it's complex and rich.

 

In this recipe

• Best tomato to make sauce
• Essential olive oil for taste and texture
• What herbs add the most flavor to ketchup?
• How to make sweet tomato sauce
• The best way to cook ketchup (not on the stovetop)
• Finish the sauce

why does it work?

• Starting with good quality tomatoes and grinding them by hand will then yield great flavor and texture.
• The combination of butter and oil will release the fat-soluble aromatics and give the sauce a creamy texture.
• Slow cooking the sauce in the oven creates rich caramel without burning.

I hit the sauce recently. I'm talking about red sauce here. You may know it as sauce. Primarily Italian-American has opened thousands of restaurants. While its origins are certainly in Italy, the simmering ketchup served in red checkered tablecloth restaurants on the East Coast (not to mention New Jersey homes) is just as much as it is in the US.

It's not a fresh, bland pomodoro sauce. It's not the kind of sauce you mix for dinner for the week. It's not a sauce you heat up in a jar, and it's certainly not a marinara sauce you use sparingly for the perfect spaghetti al dente.

It's red sauce. Slow Cooked Italian-American Ribs designed to give you pride and taste in equal portions. It's the kind of sauce you open the window on while cooking just to make sure everyone in the neighborhood knows what you're doing. This is the kind of dipping sauce that children defend their honor in elementary school. It's the sauce you want the meatballs to swim in, your chicken bath, and the sauce you want not only mixed with your pasta, but in an amount that would make a traditionalist say. up because of suffering.

 

"My mother cooked the sauce for her for 5 hours." "Yeah? Well, my mom cooks her rice for 6 hours. "Wow, my mom cooks her rice for 7 hours, and she smashes the garlic with her bare hands!"

It's the sauce that restaurants in Little Italy have built their reputation on - since restaurants in Little Italy have a reputation. We're talking all-day sauces here. The sauce starts with the simplest of ingredients - canned tomatoes, some aromatics, olive oil and maybe basil - and turns them into something good families can build. around.

A sauce that tastes like this takes a whole day to make, because it really takes a whole day to make. And one thing is for sure: if I'm going to spend all day doing something (or more importantly, trying to convince you to do it), I'd better spend every second and more.

After dozens of tries, I was ready to do what the old Little Italy restaurants did: put my name on it. This is the second best red sauce you will ever taste.

There's no way I'm competing with you here.

`Mater Matters: The Best Tomatoes for Gravy

The first and most important question: what tomatoes do we use? With luck, you might get the perfect tomatoes from a farmer or maybe your garden during the summer, and if you can, Daniel shows us how to make ketchup. The best sour from fresh tomatoes.

However, if you're like most of us, your best bet is to buy good canned tomatoes.

In the supermarket, you'll find canned tomatoes in a variety of forms - mashed, diced, sauces, and more. - but what you're looking for are whole, peeled plum tomatoes packed in juice or puree. While you may be able to find a suitable can of tomato puree, whole-packaged tomatoes are almost always better quality than those used for mashed or diced tomatoes, and they allow you to Freely shred them to the size you want.

 

Choose a reliable tomato brand if you like it: of all the available American-grown tomatoes, I like Muir Glen and Cento best. If you can find them, you will never go wrong with D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy. D.O.P. Seal ensures that they have been grown, harvested and processed according to very strict procedures that guarantee certain basic quality.

Now I hear you: "D.O.P. doesn't necessarily mean the best!" And it's true: better tomatoes can be found if you know where to look. But D.O.P. San Marzanos is always available and quality is guaranteed. I like this.

I have tried different methods for tomato puree. A blender or hand blender makes a relatively smooth sauce - I prefer the larger tomato pieces. The food processor gives near-ideal results, but is a bit messy to clean up.

Instead, I decided to roll up my sleeves, put the camera away, and switch to 100% analog mode here.

Crushing tomatoes between your fingers not only gives the best texture to thick sauces, but also has an incredibly healing effect. A coarse and thick texture like this turns into a sauce that still has plenty of body while still being thin enough to coat a sprig of spaghetti or a delicious meatball.
Essential olive oil for taste and texture

However, we are a bit ahead here. Before you put the tomatoes in the pot, you need to start with the oil. Oils perform several different functions in sauces. Above all, it is a means of transferring flavor. By sautéing aromatic substances like garlic in oil, you disrupt its cellular structure, releasing delicious compounds, many of which are fat-soluble. These fat-soluble compounds then work their way into the sauce.

Oil also allows you to cook at higher temperatures and less volatile than water. Many of the chemical reactions that produce flavor do not occur below the boiling point of water at 212°F. Oil is an edible medium that can be heated well above this temperature. Finally, the fat adds flavor and texture. Some people will tell you to never cook with extra virgin olive oil because it spoils its taste. Unreasonable!

It is true that some of its taste will be worse. But again, a neutral oil like canola or vegetable oil has almost no original flavor. You do math. Or let me do it for you: Many > Some > None. Sauces made with good olive oil will taste significantly better than sauces made with neutral oil. And, of course, there's no harm in putting a little fresh olive oil on the end.

Good olive oil has the potential to burn and become acrid if you overheat it, and especially when using olive oils with a lot of residue. However, when making a sauce like this, you never risk smoking the oil (unless you're doing something very wrong).

Texture-wise, the fat adds a rich, enveloping feel to the sauce, both when detached from the sauce and when emulsified with the liquid phase of the sauce, making the whole dish more creamy.

Olive oil alone does a good job. But here's a tip:

 

Also add a little butter. Fats emulsify much easier with liquids and add a whipped cream flavor to the mix.

Some slow cooker tomato sauces start with onions and garlic. That's how Vinnie makes her prison sauce at Goodfellas (slice the garlic thin enough to read with a razor blade, and that's how my former chef Barbara Lynch of 9th Park in Boston did. the chunks of onion in the finished sauce are nasty, no matter how fine you chop or how quickly you cook to break the onion, so I omit the onion. On the other hand, garlic is essential and in large quantities.

I ended up using 2 full cloves per 28-ounce or 800-gram can of tomatoes (that's 8 for the whole jar), although I chose to cut it with my knife instead of using Vinnie's Razor Blade. Trick. I compare garlic that is minced by hand to that which is passed through a garlic press and grated on a small glass plate. In many applications these methods are suitable. But here both produce pieces of garlic that are too small and too wet. Instead of softening and becoming fragrant, it burns very quickly. Manual cutting is the way to go.

The key to garlic is to cook it slowly and gently so that its flavor blends into the hot oil and butter, while being careful that the butter doesn't brown or burn.

What herbs add the most flavor to ketchup?

The issue of herbs has always been divisive. Fresh or dry? Parsley? Oregano? Basil?

I tried several iterations using fresh and dried versions of each in a variety of combinations. I ended up settling on a mixture of dried oregano leaves and fresh basil leaves and stems.

It turns out that some herbs are better dried than others. Basil and parsley both taste terrible in their dry, foil-like, glossy form of their own. On the other hand, Oregano is doing very well. The flavor is a bit different from fresh oregano, but it's rich and herbaceous in its own right, and for my wallet, it's a must-have in a good Italian-American red sauce.

Why the difference between herbs? The difference comes mainly from how specific herbs grow. Both basil and parsley have thin, fragile leaves that grow in a watery environment and are less likely to dry out completely. On the other hand, herbs that are better in drier climates, such as oregano, marjoram or rosemary, are much more potent. As a result, the aromatic compounds in these herbs also tend to be less volatile, so plants can retain them even as they lose moisture in the atmosphere.

The end result, as far as we cooks are concerned, is that better herbs from these drier places can hold their flavor much better when dried than herbs. soft leaves.

I tried putting the oregano in the sauce while it simmered, but you still end up with small crumbs that won't soften even after hours of boiling. Instead, it's best to swell the oregano in hot fat before adding the tomatoes. This allows their fat-soluble flavor compounds to work their way into the oil, thereby spreading that flavor around the sauce. It also breaks down the oregano enough that no hard bits are left at the end.

 
Along with the oregano leaves, I also added a large pinch of red pepper. A little heat will bring out all the other flavors in the sauce.

Once the garlic, oregano, and red pepper flakes have reached that aromatic sweetness (only about a minute after the oregano and pepper are in), it's important to add the tomatoes right away. This will instantly cool down the pan, preventing aromatics from entering the cooking process.

For fresh herbs, a large sprig of basil added to the sauce while it is simmering adds even more flavor, and if you can get your hands on a few tomato vines, go ahead and toss. a sprig of basil. In Daniel's best fresh tomato sauce recipe, he also recommends adding "1 chopped tomato with about 5 leaves".

Looking for Sweetness: How to Sweeten Tomato Sauce

As taste tests have been repeated again and again, people prefer both sweet and sour ketchup. The problem is that the tomatoes aren't very sweet - much less sweet than me (or most people) anyway. Let me admit one thing here: I've been known to add a little sugar to my ketchup in the past, a decision that seems to upset the real people immensely. I'm not giving up on this position: adding sugar is a perfectly good way to add sweetness to a sauce. A perfectly good way, but not the best. There are other methods that allow you to add sweetness while at the same time adding layers of nuanced flavor to the mix.

Many people recommend adding carrots to red sauces for extra sweetness. I tried grated carrots and cooked them with garlic from the beginning. This certainly makes the sauce sweeter, but it also makes it taste more like carrot soup.

A much better approach is to simply cut the carrots into large pieces and place them in the pot while the sauce boils. Remember that onion I didn't want to end up in my sauce? Here's why: I also add a raw onion to give the dish a sweeter taste and flavor of the onion without overpowering or spoiling the texture - a trick I learned from the sauce Tomato Butter by Marcella Hazan.

I boil everything, then let it cook for a few hours.

My simmered carrot sweet sauce is fine, but don't mind. What's missing? I'm boiling the sauce on the stove, watching it like a hawk, constantly stirring it, like the Ray Liotta command in Goodfellas to make sure the tomatoes don't stick to the bottom and brown... Wait a minute, I told myself. What if constantly stirring isn't what I want to do? Dare I meet Ray? What if a little brown is really okay? Well, not really, but it makes for a better story so just keep going, okay? 

The best way to cook ketchup (not on the stovetop)

 
As my colleague Max Falkowitz has pointed out, all-day red sauces are quite a treat compared to fresh and quick pomodoro sauces, and the best red sauces have sauces that are rich and bold. smooth and caramelized. Pete Wells, in his New York Times review of the classic red sauce seafood restaurant Randazzo's in Sheepshead Bay, described their sauce like this:

"Tomatoes cook aged, then a little, until they are as deep caramelized as a frying pan of hot dogs."

Everything becomes clear. When you slowly cook a liquid filled with protein, sugar, and other flavor compounds (like a ketchup casserole), a number of things happen. First and foremost is reduction. The water evaporates along with some of the delicious molecules that stick to the car, leaving a more concentrated base of those proteins, sugars, and flavors. Meanwhile, if the temperature is warm enough, those same proteins and sugars will break down into smaller pieces and recombine, forming hundreds of new delicious compounds - a process that is a combination of caramelization. (the process by which sugar alone turns brown), and the Maillard reaction (the reaction that occurs between proteins and sugars when they turn brown). This creates a sweeter and more complex end result than the original ingredients.

Too much brown and caramelize and you'll end up with a sauce that's too caramelized or worse, burnt. But can controlled browning help my sauce?

Most browning doesn't happen much at temperatures below 300°F, while aqueous liquids (including tomato puree) will boil at about 212°F. It is very difficult to achieve a sauce temperature much higher than this point without concentrating its non-aqueous ingredients.

I have tried several different methods. The easiest way is to forget to stir. Eventually, the soft material from the tomato sinks to the bottom of the jar and becomes so thick and dry that it can turn brown. Unfortunately, it's a brown that's difficult to control and more often than not the sauce is burnt. What about the brown color of the aromatics? I make a slow cooker batch of garlic until golden.

It was banned. The aroma and sweetness of golden garlic is just too rich of the finished sauce.

A can of ketchup also seems like a good bet: the ketchup is already well cooked and concentrated, so frying it in olive oil in a pan will start adding some of those golden notes pretty quickly. and caramel. It's a good quick fix and a technique I would use if I wanted a good red sauce in no time, but canned ketchup has an aftertaste that I want to avoid.

How about roasting tomatoes? I've tried two ways: roasting whole tomatoes in the oven until lightly golden before turning them into a sauce, and roasting platters of shredded tomatoes in the oven until lightly golden. Just like Daniel did with his ketchup recipe made with fresh tomatoes. tomato.

Both versions taste too much like grilled tomato sauce rather than just a nice rich red sauce.

But the oven gave me an idea: when I braise rich meat in a Dutch oven, such as Texas Chili con Carne or Pork Green Chile, I start the dish on the stove, then transfer it to the oven. , keeping the lid slightly open. This not only controls some of the evaporation, but also allows for limited and very controllable browning and caramelization on the top surface of the stew.

Not only that, because the oven is a constant temperature appliance that heats in all directions as opposed to a burner on the stove - a constant energy output device that heats only from below - reducing the temperature softening in the oven is actually much easier and it requires very little stirring.

Will the same technique work for my ketchup?

I light a fresh batch, simmer on the stovetop, then transfer the entire pot to a 300°F oven with the heavy lid open about an inch. Then I waited.

And waited. Patience. So be patient.

About two hours later, I couldn't take it anymore - the smell wafted through the apartment so much that I had to see what was going on inside that jar. I walked into the kitchen, nearly tripping over the dog, and peeked inside the oven.

God, that looks good, I thought to myself. The sauce has dropped by about half an inch - there's definitely evaporation here - while a caramelized residue remains around the edges of the pan. Meanwhile, the surface of the sauce isn't brown, but a deeper, richer red than any sauce I've seen on the stove. I stirred the sauce, dabbing some darker spots on the top surface and around the edges, exposing the fresh sauce to the oven heat.

 

All in all, I let it cook for almost 6 hours before it got to the point where it legally threatened to burn. In the end, I gave in and took a few hesitant bites.

I was overrated by the amount of flavor the sauce had. Deep and complex, naturally sweet and savory, this is the most intense ketchup I've ever had, though to be honest I missed out on some of the flavors of fresh tomatoes that cook faster on the stove.
To remedy this, I simply took a few cups of tomatoes from the can and mixed them into the sauce once cooked, giving me both a tangy, caramelized tomato flavor and a taste of fresh and glossy tomatoes.

 

Even so, just as I was about to open my beer and sit down to eat my au red sauce with a spoon, a cooing voice resounded in my mind.

 

Fish sauce…, he mumbled. ... because of umami, he added.
 

Fish sauce (as well as anchovies) is a rich source of glutamate, an organic compound that activates the taste sensation on our tongues. Tomatoes are also a good source of glutamate, which is why toning down the red sauce will make it taste almost meaty even without the meat.
 

Should I? I find myself thinking, as I usually do, before doing something that I know will be fun but may regret the next morning. I mean, it sounds terrible, it could just be... Oh, keep going. Do it. As usual, if I'm in trouble, I can always blame him for thinking with my mouth instead of my brain. 

 

I grabbed fish sauce and dipped it a few times, and also made my own batch of dipping sauce with some minced anchovies cooked with garlic to start. The anchovy sauce is great, but I'd be damned if the fish sauce didn't do wonders for the pot, bringing out the flavor of the tomatoes without creating an unpleasant aroma. Do you need a sauce? No. But does that make it better? I think so.

Finish the sauce

 
Honestly, the sauce doesn't need much else. Tomatoes say the most. A little salt and black pepper, a little olive oil and a little punto. Incognito. The sauce itself is so delicious that you'll hardly be able to stop yourself from going out into town with a spoon leaning over the stove before someone else gets their hands on it. If you want the dough to rise at the last minute, you can top it with herbs. I have a friend who grows tons of his own vegetables in his Garden of Eden style garden in Berkeley. And despite (or perhaps because of) too many, he runs into the same problem with his noodle dishes: ends with parsley or basil?

For me, the answer is obvious: use one or the other, or neither, or both. If I had both on hand, I would cut the mixture and fold them over at the end. If I only have one or the other (usually basil, as I've used some for sauces before), I'll use what I have - both work. If I have nothing, then he will have nothing. Think of parsley and basil as two ties that go well with an already great shirt.

OK, the similarity is not in both links, unless you believe in the prognosis of Back to the Future.

I always save some chopped herbs so that I can make this normal herb mix right before I put the dish on the table so it looks like it's effortless. It's the neatly styled messy headboard of the red sauce world.

 

If you've been writing recipes and snooping around the internet in my circles for as long as I have, you'll realize that Italians are the proudest group of their food culture and daring to think back to a Italian staples can cause you a lot of pain. hot water if you don't respect its origin.

I like to think that this sauce, although not traditional in its technique, is something any Italian would be proud to claim as their own, or at least acknowledge that it is. very tasty despite the violation.

And now I find that completing this sauce recipe is the easy part - my fridge is stocked with batches of red sauce. The hardest part will be finding enough things to put it on.

 

Click play to learn how to make the best Italian American tomato sauce

Recipe event

• Preparation: 5 minutes                Serves: 6 to 8 servings
• Cooking: 6:15                              Make: 2 pints
• Activity: 20 minutes
• Total: 6:20

Element

• 4 cans (28 ounces) of whole tomatoes, preferably imported D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes (see note)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for garnish
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 8 minced garlic cloves (about 3 tablespoons)
• 1 teaspoon red chili
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves
• 1 medium carrot, cut into large pieces
• 1 medium onion, halved
• 1 large sprig of fresh basil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce, such as Red Boat (optional)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley or basil leaves (or a mixture of both)

 Direction

Adjust oven rack to lowest position and preheat oven to 300°F (165°C). Place the tomatoes in a large bowl. Mash the tomatoes by hand by squeezing between your fingers until the remaining chunks are no more than 1/2 inch. Transfer 3 cups of mashed tomatoes to an airtight container and set aside in the refrigerator until step 4.

 

Heat olive oil and butter over medium heat in a large Dutch oven until butter is melted. Add garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until tender and fragrant but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add chili and oregano and cook, stirring, about 1 minute, until fragrant. Add tomatoes, carrots, onions and basil and stir well. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat.

 
 

Cover Dutch oven lightly and transfer to oven. Cook and stir once every 1 to 2 hours, until reduced by about half and burned to a dark red, 5 to 6 hours (reduce oven temperature if sauce boils too quickly or golden pieces begin to darken).

 

 

Remove from oven. Using tongs, remove half of the onion, carrot, and basil. Add the set tomatoes to the sauce and stir to combine. Add fish sauce if using. Season with salt and pepper, then saute the chopped herbs with olive oil if desired. Use immediately or cool to room temperature, transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 1 week. The dipping sauce can also be frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months. To reheat, heat very gently in a saucepan with 1/2 cup water, stirring until everything is melted and warmed through.