ABOUT HOMEMADE TOMATO SAUCE

Homemade tomato sauce (salsa di pomodoro) is a basic Italian recipe. You can use it to prepare many Italian dishes. With tomato sauce, you can create an incredible number of pasta sauces  (such as Bolognese or Amatriciana) and meat-based recipes (“polpette” meatballs in red sauce). The taste of homemade tomato sauce is completely different from the taste of store-bought products. You cannot appreciate the difference until you try this principal ingredient to Italian cuisine made from scratch. If you learn how to make tomato sauce starting from fresh tomatoes, you will never buy canned or bottled tomatoes again.

POMODORO OR SUGO?

Should you want to visit Italy, here are some useful Italian words to learn. The Italian word for tomato is “pomodoro”. On a menu or in a cookbook you will find the words “salsa/sugo di pomodoro”  which means tomato sauce.   The more colloquial word is sugo. Then there are the words passata di pomodoro and pelati which mean jar of tomato sauce and canned tomatoes respectively.

TOMATO-BASED RECIPES

When the tomato sauce is done, you can use it to top your pasta dish. Simply add some salt, olive oil, Parmigiano cheese and fresh basil. Or, you can create an impressive number of other sauces adding other ingredients. Below a list of pasta Italian recipes which incorporate tomato sauce.

⋅ alla Norma ( tomato sauce, eggplants, hard ricotta cheese)

⋅ all’Arrabbiata ( tomato sauce, garlic, chilli pepper)

⋅ all’Amatriciana ( tomato sauce,cheek lard, pecorino cheese)

⋅ Bucatini alla Ricotta ( bucatini pasta, tomato sauce, soft ricotta cheese, black pepper)

⋅ Alla boscaiola ( tomato sauce, pancetta, porcini mushrooms)

⋅ Alla zingara ( tomato sauce, bell peppers, black and green olives, capers)

⋅ Alla puttanesca (tomato sauce, garlic, anchovies, olives, capers)

CARROTS, ONIONS, CELERY AND GARLIC

In both methods, you can add carrots, onions celery and garlic. It’s just up to your taste. I usually add them if tomatoes are not very juicy and sweet and they need an extra touch of flavour. If I want to create a reach sauce adding extra carrots, onions celery and garlic, I use a different technique. It’s what we call “soffritto”: it consists of minced garlic, chopped onions and celery that have been sautéed in olive oil or butter. When done, I add the tomatoes sauce. This way, you create an incredible reach and flavorful tomato sauce where vegetables are still crispy and recognizable in their colour and consistency. The result will be completely different.

HOW TO STORE THE TOMATO SAUCE

You can preserve your tomato sauce for 5 days in the fridge, or 3 months in the freezer. To defrost it, get the jar out of the freezer and leave it in the fridge all night long. In Italy, you can find tomatoes at the daily market or in supermarkets almost every day of the year. In wintertime, tomatoes come from greenhouses in Sicily, in Southern Italy. If fresh tomatoes are not available in wintertime, you can prepare your homemade sauce in summertime and store it in the freezer.

DAILY MARKET OR SUPERMARKET?

Most of the tomato varieties are available all year long. The ones you find at the market in wintertime are from southern Italy where the weather is mild. Most of the tomatoes you find at the supermarket are from Spain or even Chile and the quality is not reliable and they can be overpriced. They are harvested when they are not ripe. I suggest not to use them for tomato sauce since their taste can be incredible sour. If you have no alternative, add some carrots and onion to your sauce. So, try always to buy food at the daily market from stands that sell local Italian produce.

THE HISTORY OF TOMATO

Tomatoes are originally from Mexico.  The Maya and Aztecs were growing them even before the 1500s. After Spain conquered America, at the beginning of the XVI century, tomato seeds were brought to Europe. The Spaniards also brought corn, bell peppers, beans, nuts, potatoes, sunflowers, pumpkin, cacao and vanilla which were all native to South America.

In the beginning, tomatoes were grown in Spain, then in Southern Italy which was a Spanish colony. Tomatoes were well adapted to the Mediterranean climate since it was similar to the one in Mexico. The diffusion of tomatoes was very slow. The Italians were not interested in eating vegetables from America. Not until the XVII century were tomatoes grown and eaten everywhere in Italy. From this period on, it has been easy to find the word pomodoro in many Italian recipes, especially in Napoli.

SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS

It is easy to find flower shops where you can buy seeds and grow your own tomatoes in your garden or even in a large pot.  At some markets, you can buy seedlings to transplant.