chickelit said...
Troop. (or anybody): what about when you start with fruits off
the vine? Which tomato species are the best? And how do you get from
the whole tomato to what the put in cans?
I sometimes cook with fresh tomatoes in the summer. In Cali you probably have a bigger selection since tomatoes come in all year round. What you need to do is get the skin off. So boil a pot of water and drop the tomato right in. In about a minute or two the skin should be soft so you can peel it right off like you were one of those serial killers in "Criminal Minds" who is skinning a coed. Just take the skin off and put it in your food processor. You don't want to have the skins messing up your sauce as they are hard to chew.
Now you want to pulse it a couple of times. If you just blend it you are in effect getting tomato puree. You want it chunky and country style.
Personally I like Pomi crushed tomatoes. Or even crushed tomatoes already in the can. If you use tomato puree you need to add a small can of tomato paste to thicken it up. One can of paste to every two cans of puree.
I personally only use san marzano whole plum tomato when using cans. Once again you put it in the food processor and pluse it a few time. Or alternately when I go camping I just squeeze them through my fingers and cut up the bigger pieces with a small paring knife. But plusing it a few times works best. You want a big cut where you can see the chunks.
A quick fresh tomato sauce recipe:
Ten ripe plum tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 glass of red wine
3 Cloves of garlic
1 Large bunch of basil
Mince up the garlic and saute in some olive oil. Drop the plum tomatoes in the boiling water as I said above until you see them start to burst out of their skins. Fish out with
your spider and strip off the skin. Be careful because they are hot. A safe way to do it is to put it in a bowl of ice water and it will strip right off without you burning your fingers off. Then put the tomatoes in a food process and pluse it a couple of times to chop it up. NOT TOO MUCH OR YOU GET PUREE!!!!!
Debide the pan with the wine and cook a minute. Then add the tomatoes. Stir in the salt, sugar and pepper. Bring to a soft boil and then simmer. About ten minutes before serving put in a bunch of basil leaves. Of course you washed them you slob! Strip off the leaves without any stems as they can be bitter. Float a bunch of them in the sauce. It will give a nice flavor and it looks nice too!
That will give you a chunky country style sauce.
A couple of serving suggestions:
Crack four eggs into the sauce and cook them sunny side up in the sauce. Serve on a flat dish with a loaf of Italian bread.
Add a cup of rice (cooked of course) and a cup of peas and mush around. That is one of my favorite comfort foods. Think of it as a broken rice ball. So to speak.
Mangia!
