Recipe: Roasted Red Sauce (using fresh tomatoes, freeze ahead)

ROASTED RED SAUCE

10 pounds fresh ripe juicy tomatoes, such as beefsteak, Italian plum, or whatever tastes best
4 large onions
1 large garlic head
1 or 2 large celery stalks
1 carrot
1 jalapeno or other hot pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 bunch fresh oregano, or 1 tablespoon dried (optional; see Notes)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
Salt to taste
2 to 3 tablespoons tomato paste (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200-300 degrees F. Oven heat depends on how closely you want to watch your vegetable as they roast.

Cut any black spots from the tomatoes, peel and quarter the onions, and, without separating the cloves, remove some of the papery outer peel from the garlic.

Place the tomatoes, onions, and garlic in shallow pans in the oven and roast slowly until the garlic is soft, the onions look wilted, and the tomato skins have cracked and are just slightly charred. If your oven is fairly hot this will take only about an hour; at a low temperature it will take 3 to 4 hours and you need not supervise it closely. If the oven is set under about 250 degrees F, you'll have to raise the heat for half an hour or so at the end if you want to achieve a roasted flavor.

Remove the garlic and onions and reserve. Let the tomatoes cool in their roasting pans unless there's a lot of burned juice on the bottom, in which case dump them into a large bowl or two. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, drain them in a colander, saving the juice (see Notes). Pull off the skins (they should be very loose) and trim or pinch off the stems. (For me, this is a finger procedure.)

In the food processor, coarsely puree the celery, carrots, jalapeno pepper, and the roasted onions. Heat the olive oil in a nonstick pot that will hold at least 4 quarts and saut the puree over medium heat until the vegetables are soft. If sticking occurs, add a little of the reserved tomato juice.

Meanwhile separate the garlic cloves, squeezing the roasted garlic out of the peel, and add it to the vegetables in the pot. If you're using fresh oregano, tie the bunch up in a white string so you can remove it easily later. Oregano stems are nasty little sticks.

Add the tomatoes, sugar, salt, and oregano to the pot and cook slowly, uncovered, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking and to break up the tomatoes. (For a smoother sauce, chop the tomatoes in the food processor before adding them.) Cooking time will depend on how much juice was left in your tomatoes and how thick you want your puree to become. I usually cook the sauce about 2 hours.

Optional: After an hour or so of cooking, if the mixture seems thin and astringent, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of canned tomato paste. Stir in well and continue to cook at least another half hour.

Remove the fresh oregano, let the sauce cool, and ladle it into jars or freezer containers. It will keep a couple of weeks in the refrigerator, several months in the freezer.
Notes: Because fresh herbs generally should not be cooked much and because I like this to be an all-purpose sauce, I add most herbs and spices to the portion I'm using for a particular meal. For a marinara sauce to serve over pasta, I'd probably add fresh basil and Italian parsley. For a sauce to be mixed with beans for chili, I'd add cilantro and more hot pepper. I make an exception for oregano, as its flavor improves with cooking, but if you don't much like the taste of oregano, cut back or omit it.

The juice you poured off your tomatoes has multiple uses. Unless you have an immediate need for it, freeze it in small quantities. It's excellent for soup, for deglazing, and for thinning the red sauce. There are many uses for which the above sauce is too thick and rich. In a pasta primavera, for example, it overwhelms the flavor of the vegetables. When you reheat the sauce for some such purpose, dilute it with tomato juice, chicken or vegetable stock, bean broth - any or all of the above - until the flavor and consistency satisfy you.

Makes about 3 quarts
Used by permission to Recipelink.com from
Source: The Dreaded Broccoli Cookbook by Barbara Haspel, Tamar Haspel