How do you make spaghetti sauce?
Caviar, you have a point. I shouldn’t have slammed dried herbs across the board. Your are correct that they have a marvelous place in long-cooking stews and sauces. To be a little more descriptivist: traditional Italian tomato sauces (as opposed to sauces involving meat) depend on a few strong bright flavors. They are typically simmered for a short time and involve fresh ingredients when possible. One of my summer favorites uses fresh tomatoes and basil with olive oil and isn’t cooked at all (note: don’t do this if you can’t take the acid). Meat sauces are more complex, and often involve meats that need time on the simmer to break down and absorb different flavors. These are the things that you want on the stove for a long time. Now, Italian-American cooking is a totally different animal and more often involves dried herbs. In most cases, I totally understand the thinking behind this, but in the case of the simple tomato sauce, I don’t.
If calories aren’t really a problem, you can try the fantastically delicious oilier version and only add one or two whole canned tomatoes to a lot of hot olive oil. (I like to crush the tomatoes in my hand before adding – stress reducer!) The tomatoes boil off fast and you end up with a rich oily sauce that is more flavored oil than tomato. (Garlic and hot peppers go extra well with this one.) Also, even if you hate anchovies on pizza or in salad, try adding one or two filets to your sugo. They melt away completely and add a really great deep flavor that you would never realize was anchovy.
You gotta start with the onions, as everyone else including Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan recommends. Not only do I saute them till transparent, but I actually slice them into ultra-fine bits first, and I use a couple of whole onions and just a bit of oil. These are going to be the consistency and sweetness base for the whole sauce, so they have to be right. Diced tomatoes are OK, but I prefer to crush ’em into a paste and pour the tomato juice off. Simmering it off takes too long, especially if you like to add a little wine.
The key to good gravy is to avoid the onions completely (and like Transient, I love onions). I’ve worked on this recipe for years. It’s a mixture of my ex-girlfriend’s italian mothers’ recipes and Mario Batali’s (Food Channel). Put some amazingly good quality olive oil in the pan and add garlic. Don’t put the heat up too high or you’ll brown the garlic, which is bad. Add red pepper flakes to taste (and dried oregano or basil if you don’t have fresh). After a few minutes, add half a can of tomato paste, salt and pepper to taste. When the paste is caramelized and stuck to the bottom of the pan (which is the *key* to good sauce and can take 10 minutes or more), then add your tomatoes from the can. If you don’t have a lot of time, don’t add the liquid and break them (releasing the juice) before you add them. Crush them with your hands. Add 1/4 or 1/2 a cup of red wine, fresh basil or oregano, lots of freshly grated parmesan cheese. simmer for as much time as you can stirring occasionally s
Don’t used chopped plum tomatoes, use whole ones. Simmer the tomatoes whole at first for around 10mins to let the sugar cook from the flesh of the tomatoes. If you use chopped tomatoes – or if you crush up whole tomatoes too early in the cooking process – you end up with a sauce made bitter by the tomatoe seeds.
