# Tomato sauces



## moiki85 (Jan 3, 2014)

Hi guys. I'm Italian and I want give you some sauces's recipes for pasta.

Today I would post the tomato sauce. Before write the recipes about this sauce I point out that there are many recipes but it depends what you want to eat.

For examples I like so much the sauce with the fresh tomatoes.

My favorite sauce is this.

Ingredients:

- some tomatoes (it's ok all type but not those for salad)
- one garlic clove 
- some basil leaf
- salt.

First, let's wash the tomatoes and cut them in more pieces.
After, take a nonstick pan and put in it one spoon of olive oil (better if it's extra virgin).
Press with a fork the garlic keeping his peel  and put in the pan. Fry it at over low heat for few minute. Take out the garlic and put the tomatoes in the pan.
Cooking all of it at over low heat for about fifteen minutes. In the same time add salt and the fresh basil cut with hands.
When the tomatoes are a little bit reduced to a soft pulp (but not liquefied), the sauce is ready.
If you want add a little bit of sugar (a quarter of teaspoon). This make the sauce less sour.

This pasta is very good with some differents pasta types. Apart from classic spaghetti you can try this sauce with thin spaghetti (spaghettini), linguine and mezze penne.
Naturally you have to cook the pasta "al dente", put it in the pan with the sauce then pan-fry for about three minute.
Buon appetito


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## Lisa Mac (Jan 4, 2014)

Thanks Moiki. That sounds very fresh and delicious. I will try it, as I normally use canned tomatoes when I make that kind of pasta sauce. This sounds like a good basic sauce to which one could add all sorts of other ingredients such as olives, capers and artechokes. Yes?


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## moiki85 (Jan 4, 2014)

Hi Lisa and thank you so much.

This sauce is very good also with canned tomatoes (better those in pieces).

It's possibile add some differents ingredients.

For example if you prefer you can change the garlic with onion cutted very small.

About the ingredients you can add it there are much choices:

- olives (blacks or greens). You have to add them with tomatoes;
- olives and cappers. You have to add them with tomatoes. My advice is to use the penne like type of pasta;
- some pieces of hot pepper;
- mussels or clams. For that you have to wash very well the fresh mollusks. After, in a different pan, fry the garlic (with his peel or cutted in two pieces) and some pieces of hot pepper at over low heat for few minute. Finally you have to add the mollusks. Cook them as long as they are open. You can add the mussels or the clams in the sauce with their shell or not. It depend what you like better. Attention with hot pepper because if you use too much it the sauce is too spicy and you can't taste all others tastes.

It's possbile to cook this sauce with other differents ingredients like aubergines, fishes (cod, sardine or anchovy). But for that we have to use a recipe little bit different. I will post these soon.

About the artichokes there is a different use in Italy. We use them also for pasta sauce but without the tomatoes. I'll write soon the recipes of pasta sauces with vegetables.

If you have others questions for me, I'll happy to answer you. Let me say there is a real homemade cooking. I never studied cooking. I never worked as chef. I learned to cook from my mother and my grandmother too.

So enjoy to cook.


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## larry_stewart (Jan 4, 2014)

moiki85 said:


> Let me say there is a real homemade cooking. I never studied cooking. I never worked as chef. I learned to cook from my mother and my grandmother too.




I, too, learned to cook at a young age by helping my father ( not my mother because she is a terrble cook) in the kitchen.  I now use what he has taught me, along with my curiosity to try new things.

In the summer, I will have many fresh tomatoes to try this sauce, and add other vegetables as well.  I dont eat meat, so Im sure many of your recipes will be good for me.

Thanks,
Larry


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## Whiskadoodle (Jan 4, 2014)

One good thing is we are getting better tasting tomatoes when not in our own growing season.  I was looking at some tomatoes at the store.  They were dated,  Dec 28,  30 and 31.  I said Whaaaat.  These are outdated.  They looked and smelled fresh.  Then I read the labels more closely.  Those were the dates they were Harvested.  and shipped to our store. I think they were from Costa Rica or somewhere else that has a current growing season.     I have certainly picked my own garden tomatoes when they were really ripe or couldn't use right away and store for some days.   I bought some and they taste quite good.  

 Right now, the smaller size tomatoes seem to have the best flavor. 

 Moiki,  I too like a simple tomato sauce and pasta.


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## Roll_Bones (Jan 4, 2014)

The tomatoes in our markets no matter the type this time of year just plain suck.

I must confess, that I have never made a sauce with fresh tomatoes. 
I use canned crushed, canned whole, and canned paste for my marinara.

I make the marinara buy the gallon and freeze it in small containers to make other dishes with.


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## CraigC (Jan 5, 2014)

Most commercially, mass produced tomatoes are horrible, no matter the time of year. I prefer canned tomatoes for making sauce or Sunday gravy.


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## Roll_Bones (Jan 6, 2014)

CraigC said:


> Most commercially, mass produced tomatoes are horrible, no matter the time of year. I prefer canned tomatoes for making sauce or Sunday gravy.



Even those beautiful hot house types have no flavor and are not red inside, even though they look very good from the outside. They are off colored pink and not worth the price.
Winter is not good and bad tomatoes make it worse.


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## GotGarlic (Jan 6, 2014)

I've found that Roma tomatoes have some flavor in the off-season. The best option, though, is frozen tomatoes from last summer's crop.


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## taxlady (Jan 6, 2014)

I find that organic tomatoes usually have plenty of flavour, even in winter.


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## Addie (Jan 7, 2014)

CraigC said:


> Most commercially, mass produced tomatoes are horrible, no matter the time of year. I prefer canned tomatoes for making sauce or Sunday gravy.



Some of our best professional chefs recommend that you use canned tomatoes. They go right from the field after picking to the cannery which is located right next to the field of tomatoes. They are in the can within two hours of being picked. Unless you are using tomatoes from your own garden, the ones in the store have travelled many mile to get to your store. And then they are sitting in the back room until the employees get them out for display and purchase. You can hardly call them fresh.


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## jennyema (Jan 7, 2014)

Unless they come from my garden they come from a can


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## Roll_Bones (Jan 7, 2014)

taxlady said:


> I find that organic tomatoes usually have plenty of flavour, even in winter.



Okay. I must try them now. I know I pay over $3.00 a lb for non organic. I bet the organic ones are pricey?



jennyema said:


> Unless they come from my garden they come from a can



Lucky me. I live in the country and all my neighbors have gardens in the summer.  We get many more tomatoes than we need.
I have no desire to can either.
This is one reason I have turned to container gardening and growing some herbs. No one around here grows herbs. (I did say herbs, not herb) So it works out well.

Winter still sucks!!!!!


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## Macgyver1968 (Jan 7, 2014)

I'm going to grow some tomatoes this year in the garden.  What's the best variety for sauces?  Roma?


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## CraigC (Jan 7, 2014)

Macgyver1968 said:


> I'm going to grow some tomatoes this year in the garden.  What's the best variety for sauces?  Roma?



Yup, but they have to be grown in the soil and climate of San Marzano, Italy.


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## Dawgluver (Jan 7, 2014)

Macgyver1968 said:


> I'm going to grow some tomatoes this year in the garden.  What's the best variety for sauces?  Roma?



The regular toms haven't been the best here as far as my homegrowns have gone, but I've had fantastic success with growing Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes.  My gravy, those plants are prolific. I still have some I picked green that continue to ripen.  I use Ina Garten's recipe for roasted cherry toms, freeze a bunch after roasting, and they have made wonderful sauce.  You can whizz them with the boat motor, add other herbs and such.  Romas are good for sauces and dehydrating, but I love my little cherry toms, they're so multipurpose.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roasted-cherry-tomatoes-recipe/index.html


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## GotGarlic (Jan 7, 2014)

CraigC said:


> Yup, but they have to be grown in the soil and climate of San Marzano, Italy.



Gotta say, I think that's just silly. I've been growing my own tomatoes for 20 years and they taste great. Sometimes I just peel and chop them and sometimes I roast, then peel and chop them, then portion them into the freezer for winter use. They taste fresh and delicious. I'm bummed I'm out


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## dcSaute (Jan 7, 2014)

>>What's the best variety for sauces? Roma? 
Roma is often used because it has less "water" than typical varieties - making it easier/faster to "reduce" for sauces.

but - and there's always one of those . . . you may find Romas are not the really best tasting.
it's a personal thing.  
rather a lot of the older heirloom / open pollinated varieties excel in the taste department, at least around here.

I garden my own tomatoes; then in batches I cook them down to 'stewed tomato" consistency and freeze.  sometimes with onion and green pepper, sometimes not.

doing homemade pizza with previously not salted, not chemically preserved, not processed to dust.... tomatoes is something you need to experience to appreciate.  I defrost the "stewed tomato" and reduce it further for pizza sauce.

buying tomatoes at grocery store prices for homemade sauce is seriously not 'economical' - you'll need 10-12 pounds of tomatoes to produce perhaps two quarts of sauce.

if you have access to direct farmer-to-customer stands, ask / look for "canners" - these are the same tomatoes as the A-Number-One stuff - with blemishes / mishapes that render them unappealing for the fresh table market.  If I run short of my own garden produce, I get canners, late in the season, for $2 per bushel.  there is more "waste" - but the price more than makes up for it and you get some compost in the bargin.

for off season fresh tomatoes I go with two options:
- as mentioned - Romas.  in the season of wooden tomatoes, Romas will be better than the average "whatever" they're calling tomatoes.
- the "on a cluster stem" varieties - usually out of Canadian hot houses.  a reasonable facsimile to a real tomato.


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## CraigC (Jan 7, 2014)

GotGarlic said:


> Gotta say, I think that's just silly.



As it was meant to be, a joke. Sheesh.


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## Addie (Jan 7, 2014)

CraigC said:


> As it was meant to be, a joke. Sheesh.



I caught the wink!


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## taxlady (Jan 7, 2014)

Roll_Bones said:


> Okay. I must try them now. I know I pay over $3.00 a lb for non organic. I bet the organic ones are pricey?...


Yeah, they are usually about twice as much as the not-organic ones. But, I find the not-organic ones in winter to be so tasteless that they are a complete waste of money. I don't buy a lot of fresh, organic tomatoes in winter.


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## moiki85 (Jan 14, 2014)

Yes guys. I agree with you. I think that the fresh tomatoes are the best. But if they are bad, without flavor and color or too expensive, it's better buy canned tomatoes. I also use these. But depends because I live in Sardinia, then here there are always a very good tomatoes. Sometimes they are only too expensive.


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## moiki85 (Jan 14, 2014)

Today I want give another tomato sauce recipe: tomato's sauce with aubergine.
For this recipe you need:
- one bottle of canned tomatoes;
- a aubergine
- one garlic clove 
- some basil leaf
- salt.

First, let's wash the aubergine and cut it in more cubes (if you like better you can cut it in little strips).
Then, take a pan and put in the olive oil. Add the cutted aubergine and fry it .
When are ready, you can cook the tomato sauce as I already wrote here.
After, add the aubergine and cooked for few minutes (about 5 minutes).
This is the sauce that I cook more in the spring.

But I would if someone has already tasted my sauces's recipes


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## Roll_Bones (Jan 14, 2014)

The worst tomato in our garden is better than the best one at the store. Always, no matter the time of year.
No matter the type, if we care for them and allow them to ripen on the vine, they are all good all alone by themselves.  

Now come late spring and summer, we can get great tomato's at the stands on every corner.


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