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Tip: Use a Wide Pan to Make Tomato Sauce

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When we make tomato sauces, we reach for the deep, tall, and thick-sided dutch oven.

Not so fast says The Joy of Cooking:

The faster a tomato sauce is cooked, the fresher and brighter its flavor; hence we prefer using a wide skillet that lets liquids evaporate quickly.

We made the batch of tomato sauce today with perfect balance: lively acids and sweet ripe Greenmarket tomato, complex basil and garlic, and rich carrot sweetness. It's all in there and we'll give the wide pan some of the credit. In this case, the quicker cooking time keep the flavors more complex.

Also, the pan's helper handle made it easier to life the pan on top of our food mill.

 
 

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Comments (8)

Ooh, please post the recipe - that looks gorgeous and I have a big pile of CSA tomatoes that need some love!

posted by Anne (in Reno) on 2007-09-17 18:46:07
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This is actually something my mother taught me years ago. Unless she was making BIG pot with the works (neck bones, sausage, veal, etc...) she always swore by using a pan.
Have a great day.
And yes the recipe? It does look great.

posted by Patrickinchicago on 2007-09-17 19:07:12
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Funny, I've been doing tomato sauce in a pan like that recently. I slowly saute some finely chopped onion, garlic, and carrots until soft. Add to that a bunch of freshly chopped tomatoes, and let the mixture very slowly cook down to almost a paste, stirring every once in awhile. Then I add more fresh diced tomatoes and tomato juice (or a can of diced tomatoes), italian herbs (fresh or dried), salt and pepper to taste, and let that cook down a little more. I throw some al dente pasta right into the pan with a little pasta water until the sauce coats the pasta, and finish cooking the pasta in the sauce. Throw in some fresh basil before serving and it's super yummy!

posted by J on 2007-09-17 19:09:32
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Maybe a recipe please :-) I too have CSA tomatoes to use this week. Hopeful to make a sauce and freeze it.

posted by Nicole R on 2007-09-18 09:46:00
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I'm with the others on the calls for a recipe...I've got several for fresh tomato sauce,, but I want to see yours!

posted by Jim of ChewOnThat on 2007-09-18 10:57:40
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Sauce-wise, do people recommend seeding the tomatoes? I'm new at this. What about peeling them?

posted by Anne (in Reno) on 2007-09-18 16:21:08
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it's easiest to run them through a food mill after they've softened and then cook them down a bit more to a consistency you like. Trad Italians seed and peel, but non-trads blender or food process and add more sugar or carrot to make up for the tartness from the skin. If you don't have a food mill but want to avoid the skins, just grate the tomato into the pan. most of the skin will be left in your hand. It's what I do when I'm making small batches and don't feel like getting the food mill out.

We just moved 2000 miles and we're not unpacked yet, but we did manage to get 25 lbs of tomatoes done for winter! There are several variations of sauces that are good, I tend to prefer the nice and simple ones. Carrot, celery and onion are the trifecta when it comes to Italian cooking, and a basic one is to use equal amount of each, plus your tomatoes, a little garlic (never with any bitter green shoot left) and some parsley. I like to add this to the tomato without frying first, because I like the milder vegetal flavor to let the tomato stand out. When it's done, I like to stir in a few basil leaves. That's what we can.

We're also pretty crazy about an even simpler one the romani refer to as "fake" sauce because it is so good, but doesn't have meat (which I guess implies "real" sauce does). It involves about 2.5 lbs of tomatoes, 1 onion minced, 1/4 c olive oil and basil leaves stirred in at the end. That is it. If you're buying good tomatoes it's a wonder and more then the sum of it's parts. I happen to not like that much onion in my canned sauces but I'll bet it would freeze well.

regards,
trillium

posted by trillium on 2007-09-18 20:07:51
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Am I the only one that wont cook sauce in a metal pan? It tastes different to me.

posted by SleepyDweller on 2007-09-19 10:06:11
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