Homemade Tomato Sauce from Fresh Tomatoes
Tomato sauce is used all over the world. I doubt there's a single cuisine left that doesn't use tomatoes. As Comrade Saakhov said in the old comedy, maybe somewhere up in the mountains, but not in our district.
Real sauce made from fresh tomatoes is usually rare. The main tomato product is tomato paste.
The tomato comes from South America, and it reached Europe more than 400 years ago. The French say “tomate”, the Italians say “pomo d'oro”, golden apple. The ancient peoples of the Americas said “tomatl”, and apparently the word “tomate” sounded close enough to it. For a long time tomatoes were grown as ornamental plants, and legend has it people even tried to poison others with them.
The tomato is the number one ingredient for sauces, or rather for a huge number of sauces. Tomato paste isn't a sauce, but it consists almost entirely of tomato pulp. A sauce (from the French “sauce”, gravy) is a thick or thin addition to a dish that makes it juicier and gives it a special flavor. Sauces usually contain a fair set of spices, so a sauce as a rule tastes of more than just tomato.
Well-known sauces include ketchup, mayonnaise, salsa, soy sauce, béchamel, tkemali, satsebeli, tartar, and thousands more.
Cooking has the concept of “mother sauces”. They're made strictly by the accepted recipe, with a minimum of spices and extras. The French chef Marie-Antoine Carême developed the basic sauces still used today. The French mother sauces are espagnole, velouté, béchamel and hollandaise. A little later, tomato sauce and mayonnaise joined the basic sauces.
Mother sauces are the unchanging part of any sauce. What makes a sauce special is the additional part, with various ingredients, spices and seasonings. These are also called derivative sauces.
Let's make a tomato sauce with herbs, which Italians call salsa di pomodoro: a great substitute for ketchup. Though what am I saying, how could “that stuff” substitute for a sauce made from real ingredients? Spaghetti sauce is the same tomato sauce. No tomato paste in this recipe, only fresh tomatoes.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Tomatoes 4-6
- Onion 1
- Garlic 2 cloves
- Herbs (parsley, basil) 1 sprig each
- Olive oil 3 tbsp
- Salt, sugar, paprika to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- For tomato sauce, the tomatoes must be perfectly fresh and fully ripe. No brownish or greenish ones, none with white streaks. Only ripe ones. And no tomato paste either.
- Many recipes suggest making tomato sauce from whole tomatoes and then pushing it through a sieve to separate out the bits of skin and seeds. It's all messy, fiddly and slow.
- There's a much simpler and quicker way. Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and peel them, cut them in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Cut away any greenish parts with a knife as well.
- Pick all the leaves off the dill, parsley and basil. Peel the garlic and onion. Put the herbs, onion, garlic and hot pepper (optional) into a blender or food processor. Add the peeled tomatoes to the same blender.
- Turn on the blender and blend everything until smooth.
- Heat the olive oil in a saucepan or sauté pan and pour in the tomato purée.
- Bring to a boil, salt and add sugar. The amount of sugar is entirely to taste. I think 1 tsp is just right.
- Simmer the tomato sauce, covered, over the lowest heat. It takes a long time. The sauce should become thick, fragrant and, most importantly, smooth.
- Tomato sauce usually cooks for hours. But the main rule is: no water, only what the tomatoes release. Taste the sauce now and then and adjust the seasoning: salt, pepper, sugar. And be sure to stir. As soon as the tomato sauce is the way you want it, it's done. Mine simmered, covered, for about 1.5 hours.
- Try making this sauce and you'll forget about store-bought ketchup for good. In tomato season you can make a batch, seal it in jars and enjoy it all year.
- The perfect tomato sauce for pizza, pasta, meat or fish, or simply spread on bread. Tomato sauce can easily stand in for tomato paste!
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 46 |
| Prep: | 30 mins |
| Cook: | 1 h 30 mins |
| Total: | 2 h |
| Category: | Snacks and Sauces |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.8
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