Since my different tomato plants were producing many tomatoes and I have used them different ways, I decided this past summer, after I picked the different varieties that were ripe to go back to this great recipe for tomato sauce, posted by Les. I had tried Les’s sauce earlier in the year with grape tomatoes. Instead of all grape tomatoes, I just used any kind of tomatoes that were ripe. I let the tomatoes and garlic bake longer because I had just cut all the tomatoes in half.
This sauce with all the tomatoes turn out good, in my opinion. I just cooked some DaVinci Bowties and mixed the sauce into them and then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.
I froze the leftover sauce. I did use a lot of my tomatoes this way, until it frosted in our area.
Les posted the contribution for his sauce. He posted on
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php
that his sauce is supposed to contribute to natural sweetness is achieved using vine ripened, naturally sweet tomatoes, and do as little cooking as possible.
As you will see from the recipe, it calls for slow baking the grape tomatoes, and Escalon’s 6 in 1 tomatoes (http://www.escalon.net/6in1.asp) which are vine ripened and not cooked (fresh chopped grape tomatoes are added when assembling the pizza as well).
The other strange thing (or you might at least wonder about its presence) is the ground anise seed. Les discovered anise early in my quest for natural sweetness. If you put so much in you can taste it, the anise seed works against the sweet goal. Anise is naturally sweet however, and has a little "bite" like tomatoes do. So what it seems to do when just the right amount is added is to accentuate the tomato flavor and sweetness. You'll notice Les only use 1 tsp. that's to be spread over 8-9 pizzas. He also find that grinding whole seeds in his little grinder gives a better result than buying it already commercially ground. I bought star anise one time and ground it and after that just purchased ground anise.
Les said the sauce has been the hardest part of my recipe to reveal because I have never had a sauce I love so much, and love having the secret of when I feed pizza to my friends.
This is Les’s Recipe for Tomato Sauce
List of Ingredients:
•2 pints grape tomatoes, halved and salted (approx. 1 1/2 tsp sea salt)
•4 large cloves of garlic, minced
•2 tsp olive or grape seed oil
•One 28 ounce can Escalon 6 in 1 tomatoes, strained through food mill (use disk with smallest holes).
•15g (1/2 ounce) chopped fresh oregano (a 1 ounce package yields 1/2 ounce).
•1 tsp. fresh ground anise seed
•Approx. 1 1/2 tsp. sea saltntasy tomato is this, and where can it be found year round? The answer: the grape tomato.
Preparation:
1. Salt the halved tomatoes* first in a bowl, mix in minced garlic and oil, spread on two baking sheets covered with non-stick aluminum foil, and bake in a preheated oven at 150̊ for 60 minutes, and then 10 minutes at 200̊.
* If you have a food processor with 10mm (approx.1/2 inch) slicing disc, you can run the grape tomatoes through that by packing the feed chute with the disc still, push the pulse button, and then quickly but gently push the tomatoes through (it takes less than a second to pass through). This loses a minimum of the juice (grapes are quite solid and hold up to cutting well) and significantly reduces preparation time.
2. While they bake, strain the 6 in 1 tomatoes and mix in anise seed, salt, and fresh oregano.
. . strain them, a cup or so at a time, through the medium-hole disk of a food mill. Use a spoon to help scrape off every drop puree possible from the bottom of the food mill disk (I usually do several cycles of straining-scraping). Repeat with the rest of the baked tomatoes until you’ve extracted all the sauce.
4. Mix the strained baked tomato sauce and the 6 in 1 mixture. Ladle 90g (100ml or just shy of 1/2 cup) into freezing containers (Glad sells disposable but reusable 1/2 cup plastic containers, I’ve used the same two dozen for months), and freeze until ready for use. Normally makes about 8 to 10 servings, depending on starting tomato moisture, and how successful you were extracting the sauce from the baked tomatoes (as you can see from the picture, I usually make a double batch).
This tomato sauce is much better in my opinion, than any canned tomato sauce. Just follow Les's directions from the link I posted and read down from there. It gives the tomatoes such a fresh taste and there is no need to add anything other than the ingredients he listed. I just baked a little longer, because I mostly used bigger tomatoes.
I tried Les’ recipe for tomato sauce again, but not in combination with the 6 in1 tomato sauce. I had different varieties of tomatoes from my garden and decided to try and use my regular sauce I use at market, in combination with Les’s method and rest of his recipe. I used my food processor to coarsely grate the slow oven baked tomatoes with garlic, salt and olive oil. I found Les’ recipe did also taste great in combination with my regular tomato sauce. I even ate a whole bowl of the sauce plain. I did try something like a regular Walmart brand of crushed tomatoes with Les’s recipe. I used 1 quart of my regular tomato sauce in combination with the tomatoes seen in my baking pan. I am not sure, but after trying many recipes for tomato sauce, in my opinion the slow bake of the tomatoes with garlic, sea salt, and olive oil and then combining the anise seed and fresh oregano, is what makes this sauce so special. With using Les' slow bake of tomatoes the taste of the baked tomatoes stays so sweet.
I made Les’ sweet sauce another time, but this time I used the Great Value all natural crushed Tomatoes from Walmart. In my opinion the Great Value still makes a great sauce with Les’s method and recipe. I had a decent amount of different varieties of tomatoes from my garden and used two cans of Great Value Crushed Tomatoes. The Great Value Crushed Tomatoes were a 28 oz. size can. I usually don’t measure anything when making Les’s sauce, because I use different amounts of tomatoes. I do like a little more garlic, because I like the taste of garlic. I didn’t measure out the anise seed either, but just kept putting it into the mixture, until I thought I liked the taste.
When I made Les’s tomato sauce before, I had used the 6 in1 tomato sauce and then used my regular sauce I use at market. Although using the Great Value Crushed Tomatoes did seem to give this sauce a little more tomato flavor, with a little more acid taste, it could have been the varieties of tomatoes I used. It was still great, in my opinion.
The last pictures of tomatoes were ones that I wrapped in newspapers to ripen them. Since frost was soon coming to our area, they needed to be ripened a different way instead of on the vine outside. The tomatoes were individually wrapped in newspaper and put into a cardboard box, until they ripened. An Amish friend shared this technique with me. It did work to ripen the green tomatoes.
Les’s tomato sauce for pizza, is the best, in my opinion. :)
Norma
