Thursday, March 15, 2012

The sauce off

It was about a year ago that I first published my spaghetti sauce recipe.  It was the story of a combination of leftovers gone wonderfully right.  As great as the sauce tasted the first time, I needed a way to replicate its delicious flavor without having to rely on the right combination of leftover ingredients.

Throughout this past year, I have made this recipe many times.  I've experimented, too, to get it just right.  One of the things I've experimented with is tomato paste versus tomato sauce.  I tried it both ways and each time thereafter that I went to make the sauce, I could not recall which version was best.

No more guessing, please.  Last week I decided to finalize this beauty of a recipe: the one with tomato paste or tomato sauce?  The Sauce Off ensued.  


The pot on the left contains the paste version, and on the right is the sauce version.  The paste sauce has a more robust tomato flavor.  It requires a can or two of water and a teaspoon extra sugar for my ideal flavor.  The sauce sauce, however, is the winner for me!  Its tomato-y-ness is just-right, not-too-strong tomato, and balances well with the herbs and sugar.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp. olive oil
4 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 onion, chopped
1 lb. LEAN ground beef
14.5 ounce can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
15 ounce can tomato sauce (no or low sodium works well, too)
1 tsp. each dried oregano, marjoram and basil
4 tsp. raw sugar
To taste garlic salt, ground black pepper, crushed red pepper (I never measure this.  I just sprinkle/lightly dash over the surface of the sauce, stir, taste, and repeat until ideal.)

Directions:
1.  Heat olive oil, garlic and onion on medium, stirring occasionally until garlic and onion lightly brown and caramelize.

2.  Add ground beef, cooking and stirring until cooked through and broken into small pieces.  I use at least 93% lean, which leaves virtually nothing to be drained.  This is helpful so I don't lose any of the flavor of the garlic and onions.

3.  Add remaining ingredients, stirring thoroughly.  Allow to simmer, stirring occasionally 10-15 minutes until savory.

This recipe makes about 8 servings.  Half of the recipe works well for one pizza.  Once cooled, the sauce freezes well.  Try putting it into sandwich or quart sized zip lock bags and laying them flat in the freezer to save space. 

For a meatless marinara, simply omit the ground beef and carry on.  It is equally savory.


This year I also discovered that my sauce is delicious on homemade pizza.  The meat version is simply ideal with a grainy crust and dusting of shredded mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.

My favorite crust recipe comes from Mrs. Head (of course!).  She was a wonderful cook!  I think she would be delighted for me to share.

Ingredients:
1 envelope yeast
1 c. warm water
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. olive oil
3 c. flour

Directions:
1.  Dissolve yeast in water.

2.  Mix ingredients in large bowl, adding water last until dough is easy to knead.  Knead for 2-3 minutes forming a ball.

3.  Set aside in a warm place to rise for 25-30 minutes.  Roll out and place on a floured pizza pan.

4.  Bake at 450 degrees F until done. (Usually 10-15 minutes)

This recipe makes one medium to thick crust or two thin crusts.

Notes:
The secret to a perfectly-done pizza crust is to poke the crust all over with a fork and bake 5-10 minutes in oven before adding sauce and toppings.

You can enhance this crust by substituting up to half of the flour with whole wheat flour and/or 1/4-1/2 cup of flour with ground flax seed.  Another alternative is to use whole wheat flour or ground flax seed when rolling out the crust.

For a deep dish pizza, or if you don't want the work of rolling out a crust, skip the rolling step altogether.  Grease a 9x13 baking pan and gently push the dough to cover the bottom and just a touch of the sides of the pan.  It is divine!

Extra sauce is great for dipping the crust of the deep dish pizza.

Sometimes we make a garlic butter crust.  After pre-baking the crust, but before adding the sauce, butter the edges of the crust and sprinkle lightly with garlic salt.  Herbs or parmesan cheese are also tasty.

Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. I could have told you as a good Italian that of course the sauce was better than the paste. :)

    You're making me hungry.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you ever tried to make the tomato sauce with raw tomatoes so you're not using anything canned? I always wanted to try it that way, totally from scratch.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Beth, I'm so glad I made it like a good Italian! :)

    @Lisa, I have never tried that. I have thought it would be amazing to roast tomatoes in the oven though! I bet you could roast the tomatoes and blanch the skins to peel them off (Do you do this before you roast them? I think you diced tomatoes are also peeled?). You could dice half of them and puree the other half into tomato sauce. I have been considering adding at least 8 oz. more of sauce to this recipe...just when I thought it was finalized:)

    ReplyDelete

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