Tomato sauces have many uses, particularly since the demise of White Sauce. They may be briefly cooked, or long-simmered in the traditional manner. First, though, let’s look at tomatoes themselves.

Tomato Strategies

Tomatoes are at their finest only briefly in the summer. The rest of the year plum (Roma) tomatoes are the best bet. These work well in sauces, as well as mixtures of vegetables, such as Greek salads. There is also the matter of canned tomatoes.

Canned Tomatoes May Be Used!

One reason for browsing cookbooks is to find a sanction for doing something that you have always wanted to do, but held back from lack of authority. Or, you may find that something you have been doing all along, but felt like a second-class citizen for doing so, is okay after all.

Regarding canned tomatoes Richard Olney is, in a way, some help. He finds, in Simple French Food, that tomatoes are "perhaps the only canned product indispensable to the kitchen."

So far, so good. However, he will only can home-grown tomatoes, and does not endorse the commercially canned variety. He thinks that there are too many seeds and, with some brands, a metallic taste.

Thanks, Richard, for this bit of help. Now, for permission to use commercially canned tomatoes, we can look to an Italian source, Marcella Hazan.

She recommends, in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, whole, peeled plum tomatoes. The best quality are the San Marzano variety imported from Italy. Lacking these, she suggests trying other whole canned peeled tomatoes, one can at a time. Her search is for firm flesh with a little juice. When cooked there should be "a depth to their flavor, a satisfying fruity quality that is not too cloyingly sweet." Of course there should be no sauce or herbs in the can.

She does not mention chopped or pureed tomatoes, but other writers seem comfortable with them.

We no longer seem to be completely dependent on Italy for adequate canned tomatoes. US producers seem gradually to be coming forward with satisfactory products.

Fresh Tomato Sauce?

Perhaps surprisingly, fresh summer tomatoes are really not as suitable as canned or plum tomatoes for sauce. Indeed, writers often refer to fresh summer tomatoes as "slicing tomatoes," implying that they should not be used in sauce.

The difficulty is excess water present in ripe summer tomatoes. This results in a very long cooking process.

However, the watery juices can be easily drained during cooking. You will end with excess juice, which can find a use elsewhere.

In my household, ripe summer tomatoes are a relative rarity and too valuable to put into a sauce. If I had a garden that produced large quantities of tomatoes, I am sure that I would end up making sauce from some of them.

The Role of Liaison

In a spaghetti sauce, at least as traditionally understood in America, a final liaison or coherence is essential. Tomatoes cooked in their own juice are not enough. The juices would seep down into the spaghetti, leaving stewed tomatoes on top. This is not a spaghetti sauce.

Thus olive oil is incorporated some time in the cooking so that the mass of tomatoes and other vegetables will cohere and coat the pasta. This does not mean that the vegetables must be cooked in oil from the start. Nor does it mean that they need always be cooked for a long time in the oil.

QUICK TOMATO SAUCES

A tomato sauce may be created in a very short time. This is not evident generally from cookbooks, which provide few recipes, as such, for quick tomato sauces. These tend to be buried in recipes for a specific meat or fish, with method varying at the whim of the chef. Indeed, chefs may not think of them as sauces at all, but as embellishments or garnishes.

This is not cooked in oil, so is not a spaghetti sauce. Use it when you want a small quantity of tomato topping sauce for fish, sliced eggplant, scrambled or poached eggs, pork chops, white beans, ravioli or gnocchi, mushrooms, and so on. The coulis may be stirred into short pasta, such as macaroni. For spaghetti, see Emergency Tomato Sauce below.

With familiarity, you can make this coulis in under 15 minutes, and you don’t even have to wash the food processor. You will be surprised at the fresh, concentrated taste, even though plum (Roma) tomatoes are used, available all through the year.

Most recipes specify cooking in olive oil. A fresher taste, and more reddish color, results from its omission during cooking. Stir in a little olive oil at the end, if you like.

May be refrigerated or frozen.
Makes 1/4 cup concentrated sauce

To peel the tomatoes, 5 minutes

This is one occasion when it is clearly desirable to peel, seed, and juice the tomatoes, which may be done easily for the few tomatoes involved. The skin significantly subtracts from the fresh flavor. Seeds could (although probably won’t) become black in the heating. Excess juice only increases the simmer time.

To peel tomatoes by pan-steaming, cover the bottom of the pan generously with water. Bring water quickly to active boil. Add tomatoes and cover. Pan-steam until skin is loosened, 45 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on tomato. Remove tomatoes to a plate and let cool. They may be peeled immediately, or whenever needed.

Cut tomato through the equator. Remove seeds and jelly with the tip of a knife or small measuring spoon.

To make the coulis, 8 minutes

Pour all water from the pan. Chop the tomatoes in 1/4 inch pieces and place them in the pan. Bring rapidly to the simmer. Simmer briskly uncovered, stirring constantly.

After a minute or two tomatoes will become soft. Mash them with a fork or potato masher. Continue the brisk simmer until most of the free moisture is gone, about 5 minutes.

During simmer taste and season with salt and pepper.

When free moisture is gone, stir in basil and cook another minute. Remove to a small bowl until needed.

Variation

For seasonings, see Emergency Tomato Sauce below. Considering the freshness of the tomato taste, you may not wish to use extensive seasonings.

This is similar to the tomato coulis above, but olive oil is incorporated, thus providing sufficient liaison for spaghetti or other pasta. Preparation time is 10 minutes, once you become familiar with the procedure.

For making a quantity of sauce, canned tomatoes are more convenient than plum tomatoes or fresh summer tomatoes. This sauce may be refrigerated or frozen.

Serves 2-3, makes 1 cup of sauce

Drain the tomatoes, reserving the liquid to add back if necessary. (Use any liquid left for stock or breakfast juice.) Chop the tomatoes.

Heat the olive oil in pan at medium heat. Add the chopped tomatoes. As they soften, mash them with a potato masher or fork.

Add optional garlic. Add salt, but taste first as canned tomatoes usually have salt.

Simmer, stirring constantly. Cook rapidly until moisture evaporates from the tomatoes and they begin to cohere as a sauce, perhaps 6 to 10 minutes.

Stir in basil and remove from heat. Adjust seasoning. If sauce is too thick, thin with reserved juice. There you have it, an instant tomato sauce.

Variations

In place of basil, or with, use dried thyme, oregano, Italian seasonings, or other favorites, cooking these from the start. For dried herbs to develop flavors, sauce should be cooked, instead of 10 minutes, 20 minutes or longer.

For Turkish Tomato Sauce, omit basil and add vinegar.

If you wish pureed sauce, whip the tomatoes in the food processor, either before or after cooking.

THE REAL THING

Perhaps a time comes when you want to stop improvising and make a really fine tomato sauce. We must turn to the Italians here. The French use a flour base, totally eroding any claim to credibility on the subject of tomato sauce.

The first Italian sauce below starts the vegetables a crudo, meaning that they are given no preliminary sauté in oil, for fresher taste. The second recipe uses the same ingredients, but with the customary oil sauté, producing a more concentrated, richer sauce.

We have noted Richard Olney’s observation that a preliminary cooking in water or the vegetable’s own juices, rather than oil, produces the freshest taste. (See onion section.)

Thus for an all-purpose sauce we start with tomatoes and vegetables in their own juices, that is, a crudo. They simmer for 30 minutes, and only then is olive oil added to finish. The resultant lovely flavor, basically preserved even with canned tomatoes, nicely illustrates Richard Olney’s point.

The sauce may be refrigerated or frozen.

Makes 1 1/2 cups, 2 servings, for 1/3 or 1/2 pound pasta

To simmer, 30 minutes

Chop onions and celery. Grate or finely chop carrots so that they will be cooked.

Place canned tomatoes with their juices in the saucepan. Stir in carrots, onions, and celery. Salt to taste now or later.

Bring rapidly to simmer. Then cook uncovered at a slow, steady simmer for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time. Sauce may simply be allowed to boil for this stage; there is no need to drain liquid yet.

To finish, 15 minutes

Pour off any excess liquid, and reserve to add back, but leave tomatoes moist. Stir olive oil into the tomatoes. Turn up heat slightly and cook uncovered at a stronger simmer 15 minutes. Stir frequently. Add reserved liquid, or water, whenever tomatoes will absorb it, according to the Red Sea test.

When To Add Liquid? The Red Sea Test

In simmering this tomato sauce in its final stage, most of the liquid should be drained and then added back from time to time. Otherwise, the tomatoes will simply boil in liquid and take forever.

To detect when to add liquid, scrape a spoon across the bottom of the pan. If you see a dry path, with a little liquid seeping into the open space, it is time to add some more liquid.

(If no dry path is formed, and pure liquid appears on the bottom, do not add more liquid at this time. At the other extreme, if there is a dry path, and no visible liquid at the edges, you are a little late with the addition.)

If little or no excess tomato juice is available, use water.

Do not be fooled by pools of liquid that appear in the surface. In spite of these, the bottom can be quite dry.

Variations

For a smoother sauce, puree before adding olive oil.

Add ¼ cup chopped sweet red bell pepper with the other vegetables.

If making a sauce with canned clams, add the clams just before serving, but incorporate clam juice during the cooking.

For a few glorious weeks in summer, lovely ripe, red, juicy tomatoes appear inexpensively in the markets. After you have had your fill of thick sliced tomatoes with olive oil and fresh basil, you may want to make some into a sauce. The procedure is generally the same as above.

Use ingredients above except
Omit: 2 cups canned tomatoes
Add: fresh tomatoes, 2 pounds

For improved flavor, peel the tomatoes. This is often easier for fresh tomatoes than plum tomatoes. Cover the bottom of the pan with water. Simmer tomatoes until skin is loosened, about 45 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on tomato.

If tomatoes are juicy, they will release a large amount of liquid upon simmering. About 10 minutes into the simmer, drain excess liquid so that 1 inch remains in bottom of pan. Reserve the liquid to add back later or for other purposes. (It’s tasty for breakfast.)

This uses the same ingredients as above, but they are treated differently for a richer sauce, with more authority.

The vegetables are not a crudo, but sautéed in oil. In addition they are cooked longer, becoming more dense and darker.

Sauté onions, carrots, and celery in the olive oil until the onions begin to turn golden, 15 to 20 minutes.

Add tomatoes. Cook uncovered at a slow, steady simmer for 45 minutes, stirring from time to time. (See instructions "When To Add Liquid?" above.) 

It is possible to make a tomato sauce without oil.

Proceed as in the Fresh Tomato Variation of the All-Purpose Tomato Sauce, omitting olive oil. Place the tomatoes, onions, celery, and carrots together in a saucepan. Simmer covered 1 or 1 ½ hours until the tomatoes form a mass. (Drain liquid early as suggested in the variation, and add back according to the Red Sea test.)

The sauce will not be quite as coherent as we are used to, but has a fine flavor and coheres well enough for pasta.

Adapted from Carol Field, In Nonna’s Kitchen: Recipes and Traditions from Italy’s Grandmothers.

SUMMER TOMATOES

Suddenly, it’s summer. All year we have been surviving nicely with plum tomatoes and canned tomatoes, but now come the big, red, ripe, prime-time tomatoes, at a reasonable price.

How do you take advantage of the season?

Since any cooking seems only to lessen their fresh flavor, one answer is not to cook them at all. They may be prepared simply as chilled tomato slices, and or in an uncooked sauce for pasta.

See recipe using basil and olive oil in Vegetable Section.

This is not really quick. It must be made at least 2 hours ahead to blend flavors. Also, labor is a little more than you would think, although not excessive.

Suite yourself on the garlic. Sparing use will allow the taste of fresh basil and tomatoes to come to the fore.

This may look like a salad, and indeed it can be, even though designed as a sauce for pasta.

Serves 4

Peel and seed the tomatoes, for more concentrated flavor. (Cover the bottom of a pan with water. Cover and bring to simmer. Simmer tomatoes until skin is loosened, about 45 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on tomato.)

Cut at the equator and remove seeds with the tip of a knife.

Place tomatoes in a bowl. Puree garlic and add to taste. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir in olive oil. Chop basil finely and stir it in.

Strain the mixture and reserve juice for later addition or other use. Let stand at least  2 hours at room temperature (or in refrigerator overnight) for flavors to develop.