Tomato sauce notes

I think making tomato sauce has to be one of the cooking topics that may approach religious beliefs. Hence I have some trepidation to share my notes, though I do want to have the notes recorded, the result has been consistently evoking "WOW!" reactions. 

This is how we make tomato sauce. Notes are added below the recipe.

Ingredients:

• Onion, chopped finely. 
• Optionally: carrots and celery, chopped finely
• Tomatoes, whole, washed. We use organic dry-farmed tomatoes we procure from our CSA farmer.
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt.

WHAT, NO QUANTITIES? Yes, that is true. You develop your own preferences. Besides, I never measure. Here is an approximation: For 10 lb tomatoes we would use 1 super large, or two large, or 3 regular size onions. A handful of carrots, and a handful of celery. Two large pinches of salt. Probably 1/3 cup olive oil.

Method:

1. In a food processor, chop up onions finely. Add carrots, and celery if you are using them. 
• Pause a few times and scrape the walls of the food processor. Do not worry if you get a mush, in this case it doesn't matter.
• You can do the chopping by hand if you prefer. If your food processor is too small, do it in batches.
2. Add a good amount of olive oil to a deep pan, heat it at medium high, be careful not to get to a smoking point.
3. Add the mirepoix mixture, stir, add a large pinch of salt, stir again.
4. While the aromatics are softening up, fill up your blender with washed tomatoes. Blend them finely.
• No need to panic when the blended tomatoes get the ugly pink color. They will soon return to the ever so satisfying deep red color.
5. Stir the aromatics periodically until they start turning yellow.
6. Add the blended tomatoes to the pan.
7. Blend more tomatoes, and add them to the pan, until you have used up all the tomatoes that you plan to use.
8. Add another large pinch of salt, stir the sauce.
• The amount of salt is your choice. Remember that simmering will reduce the sauce, so use less salt than what you may think is necessary. Plus, you don't want the salt to overpower the flavor of tomatoes.
9. Bring the sauce to a simmer, and simmer slowly for as short as 30 minutes to as long as you want, we do it for about 3 hours. 
• IMPORTANT: Stir periodically, e.g. at least every 20 minutes or so, depending on your pan and stove. Burned tomato sauce is a giant disappointment. I set an alarm as a reminder every time I stir.
• Lower the heat gradually as the sauce gets thicker. This will minimize splashing, and will also reduce probability of burning the sauce.
• Shorter simmer yields more sauce with a fresher taste
• A long simmer produces a much smaller yield, but a super rich deep flavored thick sauce. We prefer that.
10. Consume it fresh, preserve the rest, share with friends.

Notes

Tomato sauce has uses far beyond pasta dishes and pizza - though those present excellent opportunities for application of the red goodness. Below are a few examples: Flat bread with tomato sauce and sauteed pappers, with a poached egg. Shakshuka takes a new dimension when one uses a really good tomato sauce. Ground beef with padron peppers takes on tanginess and sweetness from tomato sauce. The simplest of all, which I don't even have a picture of, a slice of bread with tomato sauce, roasted garlic, and maybe a touch of mozzarella. Then there are soups and stews...

Clearly, one always needs to have a supply of tomato sauce ready. Should one buy it in a store? Make it from canned tomatoes? Make it from tomato paste? This is what we have chosen, simply because the result beats by a large margin everything we have been able to procure, and because this way we have full control and can use the best ingredients possible.

One may ask whether the choice should be freezing or canning. If you have sufficient freezer space, the question is answered - freeze. The reason is simple - when canning, it is recommended to add a touch of citric acid to prevent botulinum toxins being formed. Which is sad. One works so hard to create sweetness in the tomato sauce, and then takes it down a notch for the sake of safety. We freeze some tomato sauce, but we don't have enough freezer space to freeze it all, so we turn to canning. To be honest, the end result still beats anything we have purchased by a healthy margin.

Blending is a big time saver with no negative effects

Making tomato sauce takes the time as is, but at least while the sauce is simmering, one can do other things, and an alarm can remind you when to stir the sauce. We used to peel tomato skin, deseed the tomatoes, chop them by hand or smash them with a cooking spoon. All of that takes the time and effort and is messy. 

Eventually I gave up and simply threw the whole tomatoes into our blender and gave it a go. The result was a terrifyingly pink tomato liquid  - the picture really does not do the ugliness the justice.

I panicked appropriately, turned to my old friend Google, and quickly learned that there was nothing to worry about. At the sauce cooks, it really does turn into the satisfyingly deep red color. We have a powerful Vitamix blender and run it at the highest speed. That blends the skin properly, and also blends the tomato seeds. The end result is indistinguishable from the method when one peels and seeds the tomatoes - a decisive win for the blender.

We use a ceramic wok!

The slow simmer evaporates the water, and I believe it also caramelizes tomatoes to a point, they become much sweeter. To evaporate the liquid, one needs a vessel with a large surface. We started out by using a roasting pan, and we even tried roasting the sauce in the over for hours and hours, and we also tried using the pan over two burners. It all worked, but the runaway winner is a 14-inch ceramic (non-stick) wok. The shape of the wok maximizes the evaporation surface. The usual carbon steel wok would not like being exposed for hours to a simmering acidic tomato mixture - at best you'd need to reseason the wok. At worst, the tomato sauce may take on some metal taste - I have read about that, thought my experience has been that cooking tomato sauce in a cast-iron pan works just fine. So we turned to ceramic non-stick woks - a 14-inch wok is good for 10lb of tomatoes. They don't burn easily - a huge plus - and the cleanup requires no effort.

We add spices when we use the sauce

We don't add any spices or garlic to the sauce. This way the sauce stays generic and can be used for anything. We add garlic, herbs, or dry spices such as smoked paprika and cumin when we use the sauce. For example, for shakshuka, we fry smoked paprika and cumin on a bit of olive oil, then add the tomato sauce and bring it to the simmer.

If you have a thick sauce, you can dilute it

The sauce we make is quite thick. Not quite tomato paste thick, but much thicker than anything we have ever purchased. This makes it great for a topping for bread, or even with pasta, there is only concentrated flavor.

But sometimes one needs more liquid: Back to the shakshuka example. We like to cook some greens in the tomato sauce, and when we use collard greens, or red-beet greens, or lacinato kale, one needs more liquid to cook the vegetables and not burn the sauce. So we add some water, or dashi, or bean-cooking liquid, any kind of stock, and dilute the sauce enough to get the greens cooked without burning.

What tomatoes to use?

I believe the tomatoes we get are Early Girl, dry farmed. Meaning that the irrigation they get is from the morning mist. Those tomatoes are smaller, and pack an amazing flavor as is. Many recipes recommend using Roma or other plum tomatoes because those tomatoes are less juicy. I'd say get the best tomatoes you are able to buy and you can afford them.

Purchased sauce is cheaper, and inferior

Making your tomato sauce is not necessarily a money saving measure. For us, I think it comes to about $5 per 16 ounce jar just for the ingredients. Admittedly, one can buy tomato sauce for way less money and with way more convenience.