A Sauce for All Seasons
A few weeks ago someone asked me about homemade tomato sauce. Got me thinking about it, so I thought I'd share it. Please keep in mind this is a variation of Alton Brown's "Seeing Red". Yes, there is an exact recipe, which I followed the first time, but since then I just shoot from the hip. Measurements are not exact, but rather to taste...
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"Mr. Brown I presume" |
Ingredients:
- 2 White Onions (diced)
- 6 Stalks Celery (diced)
- 6 carrots (diced)
- 7 cloves garlic
- three Large cans whole tomatoes
- 1 tsp dry basil
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp dry oregano
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 tbsp capers
- 1/3 cup white wine
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cube butter
- olive oil
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 brown sugar
- salt
- pepper
Open up cans of tomatoes and pour contents into a strainer over a pot (you want to keep all the juice) Try to remove all the seeds from each tomato, this is a time consuming task, but seeds don't taste good so...discard.
Place all the juices along with seasonings into a pot and reduce liquid by half over Med-High heat.
In a large oven proof pan, sweat the onions, celery, carrots, and garlic with olive oil...about 10-15 minutes until tender...then add the tomatoes and capers. Mix it around so everything is incorporated and then
Place in oven under your broiler. When things start to brown five them a stir every 4-5 mintues...do this for about 15-20 minutes. Watch carefully as they can burn fast.
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salt 'n' pepa |
Remove from oven and de-glaze pay with the white wine...move everything to a large pot, add reduced liquid, butter, and brown sugar. Hit it with a blender stick until smooth. add Salt and Pepper to taste.
This can be used for just about anything italian, pasta, lasagna, I use this to simmer my meatballs, pizza, etc. I also have used this as a base to make a tomato cream sauce, the ideas are endless, or at least have a slight potential to be endless...you can even make Chili? Really? Yes...really...but that is another blog ... did I mention it freezes well. Once batch will last us a long time.
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