My First Sauce Taste Test

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Kikaida

Thanks for the kind replies, I'm using Martino's Roma for the tomatoes. My procedure was quite simple. Toss them whole in simmering water until they split and became soft, ran them through a strainer removing the seeds and skin, heated a pan with a little olive oil (not the character) and browned some garlic...Tossed in the sauce with some salt and a pinch of fresh basil and reduced. I really wanted a basic sauce to see what base-line would be like. And I guess that's exactly what I got.

Martino's Roma is one of thebetter paste varities and in the following link you'll see I know it well since I got seeds for it from Maureen who first SSE listed it in an SSE yearbook from the early 90's. And I sent seeds for trial to several seed vendors who I knew well, as I always have and still do.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki...b=General_Info

You can see how popular it is by looking at seed availability in the above link. Tania has not been able to update for 2015 but I'm pretty sure many of the places offering it in 2014 still have it. I just checked my 2015 SSE Yearbook, and yes, still beihng listed and what surprised me is that Maureen was again offering it herself with all the background info and more.

Sheesh, it has to be several decades since I got it from Maureen so she must be almost as old as I am.

BUT, as others have said good sauce is made with several ingredients and very few would use just ONE paste variety as you've already seed above.

So IMO the problem is NOT that of using Martino's Roma at all, rather what other ingredients you use in making your sauce and seeing how many don't even use paste varieties to make super tasting sauce.

I hope that helps,

Carolyn

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Kikaida

Gotta say I'm a little disappointed. The sauce was good, don't get me wrong, real good. The thing is, we have an international market close by that sells canned sauce from Italy for cheap and to be honest, they tasted the same. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or is sauce just sauce?

Fresh homegrown tomatoes are way different than the market variety and much tastier...but the sauce? Not as much wow factor versus effort. For me at least.
-
Any advice?

Let me ask again something from the top.

Is your sauce better than the stuff you get made in the USA like Hunts and so forth?

When I was growing up it wasn't a matter of better taste it was economics that drove us to growing and canning on a large scale.
We ate great but worked our tails off for it.

Worth

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Dewayne mater

Marsha - would you mind sharing your sauce recipe? I've still got a ton of san marzanos and they continue to produce when everything else has nearly stopped. I've tried a couple of sauces with them and haven't been too impressed with either.

Dewayne Mater

Here you go.


I made and canned a bunch more sauce, and I wrote down what I put in. You can of course vary this, more hot pepper flakes, vinegar instead of lemon juice, sugar instead of honey, even agave syrup or maple syrup, it all works, but here's the basics.
6 qt tomatoes, any color or type, peeled. I use boiling water for 3 minutes per tomato and the skin slips right off.
3 medium yellow onions small chopped
6large garlic cloves, minced
4Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1&1/2 dried Ancho chilies, I get them at WalMart foods
2&1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
2Tbsp dried italian herb mix
1/2 - 1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 170g can(small can) tomato paste
1/2 cup honey
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon

peel and coarse chop all tomatoes

heat oil over med high heat, then saute onions until just slightly starting to brown, then add garlic and saute for about 45 seconds
add all the tomatoes and stir well, bring to boil, then turn fire to low and cook stirring occasionally for 20 minutes.
add the chopped chilies,salt,herbs,red pepper flakes, simmer stirring occasionally for 30 minutes more
take a potato masher and mash dopwn the sauce to make the bits finer, but still chunky, if you like a smooth sauce just process in blender or immersion blender.
add tomato paste, honey, and lemon zest and juice, and taste to adjust seasoning.
Now it's ready to can.

[Bipetual]

Did you just make it today? Because it's usually even better the second day!

[Gardeneer]

I like Marsha's recipe.
I just make it like Italian chefs do it on TV: Main ingredients ( after tomatoes):

-- Olive Oil,
-- Garlic, shallot (sauted with Olive oil)
-- Oregano, sage, fresh Basil, salt, pepper
Other stuff like red bell pepper, celery can be also added.
Yeah, a little sweetener, to hide the sour taste. Honey is better than sugar.
I also add paprika for added flavor and color.
So it really depends on what you like. For example I add lots of Tabasco type hot sauce ( my own made)

Gardeneer