How to cook a wonderful tomato sauce

We have nothing against tomato sauce that is sold ready-made: it is usually cheap and looks very attractive to the eye, with a deep red color that makes you want to eat it as is. The flavor is also usually quite successful, so what can we complain about? Well,  there are some points could be improved.

Flavor :

The most important problem with industrialized sauces is the acidity of the tomatoes used. Not all tomatoes are ideal for making tomato sauce. They must be sweet and very ripe, something that manufacturers do not always take into account when using tomatoes with too much acidity. To make the sauce pleasant to the palate, they add sugar and if the tomato is really very acidic, then more sugar. That makes tomato sauce fattening and also harmful for diabetics. You can make tomato sauce without using sugar but first we must meet our friend the tomato. The most acidic part of it is the central part that contains the seeds. The sweet part is the meat and the bitter part is the skin. So it is clear that whatever the type of tomato to use, we must not use the skin or the seeds.

In most markets we usually find many types of tomato, but there are 3 that are usually used to make sauce: the round, the round with the "star" heart and the pear type.

The tomato in the image above is usually not a good tomato to make sauce. It is quite tasteless and also acidic. At most it can be used when it is very ripe and by then it will surely give a quite acidic sauce.

The tomato that we see on these lines is the so-called "pear" type, which is somewhat better than the previous one. If there is no other remedy, you can use it but surely you will still need to add some sugar.

And this is the tomato that gives the best results. We call it "star" because of the way the seeds are arranged, but it surely has another, more technical name. When it is ripe it is very sweet and that will make it almost unnecessary to add sugar or much less than with other types of tomato.

Tomato sauce can be made as is, without additional flavoring, but this is usually rare. There are people who add  onion and garlic, aromatic herbs or even bell peppers. That goes to the taste of each one. In the recipe that we are going to show you, only salt, oil and garlic are used. Basil is optional. 

The color

It may seem silly, but the red color of the tomato, no matter how intense, does not always result in a sauce that is red, but rather orange. This occurs for a number of reasons. The first is because of the cooking temperature. Ideally, cook the sauce over very low heat and cover the casserole so that it reaches 100 degrees (212 F). At that temperature the color turns deep red. But it is not all we have to do. Many people pour the tomato meat directly, at best somewhat chopped, so that in the end they are forced to pass it through the grinder. When this operation is carried out to obtain the sauce, the oil used in the frying emulsifies with the natural coloring of the tomato and turns orange, being unattractive. This does not happen if a manual grinder is used, but with the electric mixer the color will surely change for the worse.

Now we are  going to explain to you how to make a quick tomato sauce

INGREDIENTS :

1 Kg (2.2 pounds) of very ripe "star" type tomatoes

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon basil (optional)

Extra virgin olive oil

As the seeds give an acid flavor and the skin a bitter one, many cookbooks indicate that both should be removed. For this we are going to cut the tomatoes in half and with a teaspoon we will easily remove the central pulp.

We place a grated on a bowl and we grate the tomato halves being careful not to "grate" the tips of the fingers. Do not worry, the skin will gradually retract and it will not be grated with the pulp. By grating the pulp we avoid the problem of color change, since it will not be necessary to pass it through the food processor or the electric mixer.

In a non-stick frying pan, pour a generous jet of olive oil. Heat without it getting to smoke and add the tomato (be careful! It has a lot of water and it can jump). We give a couple of turns and reduce the fire. If we do it to the minimum, it will take about 40 minutes to do. If it is medium-low, about 20. Add the teaspoon of salt, the garlic clove, finely chopped and without the central germ, and the finely chopped basil. The casserole must be covered. This way, tomato will not jump, making dirty the kitchen and also the water will not be lost.

After the time we lift the lid and check the flavor. We rectify salt if necessary. If we find it very acidic then we can add sugar but carefully, don't overdo it. 

And now is the time to decide how think you want your sauce. 

If you want it to be very thick, then lift the lid and let it cook until the sauce takes time to "regain" the central space when the spoon passes through the bottom of the pan. If you want it liquid, leave an additional couple of minutes for the water to evaporate but without ceasing to watch, because it's easy it gets burnt. 

 You will obtain a sauce of the flavor you like - it also works well with oregano, bay leaf, etc. - and with a natural intense red color. And what happens if you like it with an onion sauce or adding bell peppers? In this case, I recommend adding a little grated tomato to the sauce - not everything - and passing it through the electric mixer so that the onion is well crumbled. The result will turn orange but then, when you add the rest of the grated tomato and cook it as I have indicated, it will take on its natural deep red color.

The sauce can be frozen without problems or stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 to 3 days.