an ode to tomatoes, and its sauce.

The tomato.

Picture from smittenkitchen.

I thoroughly appreciate good italian tomato sauce. And I love a good home-cooked italian spaghetti, when its done right. When it's not, the whole dish can taste like watery ketchup carb-dump. So when I realized this past year that I can try my own hand at making tomato sauce, I indulged. I adore tomatoes and I like cooked tomatoes even more. When I was in Seoul during the winter a few years ago, in order to help combat the bone-chilling cold, I used to boil a tomato (place whole tomato in 1/3 cup of water and boil) until it got soft and sprinkle some sugar on it to eat as a warm snack. K. thought it was strange, but it is oh-so delicious. Also, tomato sauce is one of the best platform to simmer all sorts of different kinds of spices and flavors, and when you get the combination right it can be heavenly. Paired with a good Cabernet, I'm all set.

The sauce.

Before I go into how I personally make my tomato sauce on a regular basis, I want to share from whence I evolved my philosophy about tomato sauce. Not too long after my affair with cooked tomatoes, a friend told me about this concept of cooking with three basic ingredients from a great book by Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. This book is basically the Italian counterpart to Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I could harp about both, but the relevant thing to note here is that Hazan suggests a recipe so delightfully simple I had to try it immediately.

Picture from smittenkitchen.

The recipe calls for three ingredients. That's right, THREE. Tomato, butter, and onion. It's like something out of a magic book. How can that make sauce? And yet it does. Put tomatoes (28 oz of whole peeled tomatoes from can, San Marzano, if you can find them), 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter, and 1 medium-sized (peeled and halved) yellow onion into a saucepan over medium heat. Bring sauce to high simmer, then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a low simmer for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion (or not) and enjoy over pasta. That's it!



As simple as it was, the sauce truly was delicious. Apparently, the butter and the juice of stewed onion is all it takes to transform tomatoes to something velvety and lush. You get to really enjoy the tomato for what it is, and you also get to enjoy how easy it was to make it. The taste of the sauce manages to remind you of how fresh and sweet tomatoes are in the summer, while being so appropriate for the winter when canned tomatoes abound.

What this sauce taught me was that tomato sauce has to be about amplifying the wonderful depth of a tomato. I have since then tried all sorts of different things with my sauce, but here I'll share the steps I usually take to put it together. For me, onion and garlic are key, and I add in the meat because meat is key for the husband.



I always start by sauteing garlic and onion. Then I brown whatever meat I am using. Ground beef is okay to use, but italian sausage is my favorite. I think it goes better with the tomato sauce and adds a lot of flavor. Ideally, I would mix half spicy and half sweet italian sausage together.

Then I work on the sauce. I start by mixing whatever combination of tomatoes I have on hand. A mixture of regular tomato sauce, diced canned tomatoes and tomato paste is usually standard, but I always like being able to add cut-up pieces a fresh tomato or smooshing peeled plum tomatoes into the mix. After bringing it to a gentle boil, I let it simmer and start adding in all of the spices. Some salt and pepper, a couple of basil leaves, a little bit of sugar, small dashes of the red pepper and parsley flakes, maybe a little bit of oregano, and a dash of olive oil - tasting as I go. In the spirit of experimentation, other things I've tried adding are bacon bits, beef bouillion, and wine. I add in the cooked garlic-onion-meat and continue to let it simmer so that all the flavors can mix in together. Usually I also like to add in a vegetable if we have it around - my favorite is zucchini. Coat some cooked pasta or spaghetti with the sauce, sprinkle some grated parmesan cheese, and voila!

The meatball.

Yesterday, I decided to try another variation by trying my hand at making meatballs, for the first time. I found a pretty basic recipe and modified it a bit. I first mixed 2 eggs, 1 cup of Romano and Parmesan cheese, 2 cloves of garlic, and salt and pepper together in a bowl. I toasted 6 pieces of white bread and made 1.5 cups of bread crumbs and added it into the mixture. I then put 1 lb of ground beef and 1 lb of ground pork into a separate bowl, and added in the breadcrumb mixture. I mixed the meat with my hands (because using a fork or spoon for too long makes the meat stringy) while slowing adding 1 cup of lukewarm water. Adding water might seem strange, but it makes the meatball really juicy. The mixture should be moist, but the consistency should be so that you can form a ball of meat.

I got a saucepan hot with olive oil, and placed the meatballs into the pan. You have to watch the meatballs to make sure they get cooked and browned on each side (i used a spider to rotate the meatballs). Once they were appropriately brown on the outside, I stuck them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 5-19 minutes to make sure they cooked all the way through. After they were done, I placed them into the 3-ingredient tomato sauce to simmer and served over spaghetti.

The meatballs turned out tasty- slightly crispy on the outside, moist on the inside and melted cheese in the in-between. These meatballs may make another appearance in another non-tomato dish.