Homemade Tomato Sauce - Italian Style

My all-time favorite recipe I picked up while living in Italy was a recipe for homemade tomato sauce.  Up until moving to Italy, tomato sauce for me was something that came out of a can or jar, a typical American approach.  As a result, dinners of spaghetti and meatballs, or pasta and red sauce were not my idea of a good meal.  After only a few short months in Italy, I came to the realization that tomato sauce was a staple in Italy and could be AMAZING, especially when made from scratch and even more especially when tomatoes were in season (August/early September). I originally started making tomato sauce, no matter what time of year, throwing cubed tomatoes in a pot (if you have a good, sharp knife it will go fast), allowing them to cook down with some olive oil, garlic and basil and then pouring the cooked sauce over al dente pasta or baked eggplant.  I would leave the skins on and seeds in and use our hand blender to combine everything together.  I still do this (with some variations – see recipe below), especially since there's a lack of storage space around here, but the one time we had the opportunity to make it the true Italian way was something I will never forget.  My husband and I joined his boss (at the time, anyway) who learned this from her former mother-in-law, an Italian. While she has passed away (the mother-in-law that is), her traditions have been passed on, albeit to a set of expats.  In this true Italian method of making homemade tomato sauce, we had cartons full of fresh, in-season tomatoes (ideally, you should use San Marzano’s), a huge cooking pot, a little gas burner, a de-seeder and de-skinner (electrically powered, although these are also manual as well), leaves of basil, copious amounts of coarse sea salt, and sterilized canning jars.  We started off by weeding out all the bad tomatoes and halving the good ones, throwing them into the huge pot sitting over the gas burner.  A handful or two of salt was thrown in and they were allowed to cook down until half or more of the water boiled off.  Next, the mixture was put through the de-seeder and de-skinner, and the final mixture was canned with a leaf or two of basil leaves.

The recipe to follow is the homemade tomato sauce I use on an almost weekly basis.  It's a good substitute once all the jars of the real stuff you made at the end of summer are finished.  This recipe serves as the base for seasoned sauces such as marinara, amatriciana ('spicy' Italian tomato sauce), or even simply roasted garlic and basil.  

Ingredients:

1 kilo tomato of tomatoes (use as much as you have, just be sure to accommodate the salt content)

Salt (course if available)

1. Chop tomatoes coarsely (approximately 1 cm x 1 cm x 1 cm in size) and put into a large stock pot.
2. Add a couple a couple of small handfuls of salt (it's better to go less than you think here because when you finish the sauce with whatever seasonings you want, you can add more salt)

Chopped tomatoes

 

Chopped tomatoes, coarse sea salt, just before cooking

3.Turn the heat to medium-high and allow the tomatoes to become soupy (very watery - that's ok!)

4. Turn the heat down to medium and stir occasionally to lift the goodness that collects at the bottom of the pot (if it's black or brown, you're burning the tomatoes and you don't want that, turn the heat down).  

5.  Cook until the sauce is half the amount of the chopped tomatoes (about 45 minutes).  Taste for salt and adjust as necessary. 

I typically season my tomato sauce by roasting garlic in a little bit of olive oil (heat olive oil, once warm, turn down to low and add the garlic - allow the garlic to roast in the oil, it will turn a golden brown), add the raw tomato sauce and basil and allow to cook together (low heat) until your pasta is ready.  

Buon Appetito!