Oct 7, 2010

The Process

Let's just skip over the part where I acknowledge how long it's taken me to finally finish this topic. Here is how I turned my san marzanos into sauce.

Step one, you find the first tomato of the season and celebrate a little bit. Come on, that's one cute tomato.

Next, you gather your batch of tomatoes. Remove the stems and wash them. (Note to self: remove the PGA championship parking pass from the picture next time)

Gather whatever seasonings you'd like to use. For some batches, I used fresh basil and oregano from my front porch. Other times, I did straight-up tomatoes. Both were great.

Next, bring a pot of water to a simmer. Place 7-8 tomatoes in the water at a time, and wait for the skins to "pop", like this one. Place on a cookie sheet until the tomato cools down. Peel the skin off and discard.

Run the tomatoes and seasonings through a food processor until the desired consistency is reached. Some batches I opted for chunky, others super smooth.

Add the pureed tomatoes to a pot (my dutch oven worked great for this!) and simmer on med-low heat for several hours or until desired thickness is reached. For most of my batches, I reduced the sauce by half to really concentrate the flavors.

Lastly, admire your sauce.


I made quite a bit of this, and now my freezer is full to the brim with san marzano sauce to use in late fall and winter. I've only sampled it once on pasta and it was delightfully simple. This weekend there are plans in the works to turn it into pizza sauce with the help of some carrots, onion, and celery finely pureed and sauteed.

Well, that is mostly all I have on this topic. I'm sure you are well-aware of my strange obsession with a local pizza place that honors these tomatoes. That obsession played a large part in my decision to grow these plants. For the final decision factor...you'll just have to wait.

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