The Sunday Gravy Experiment Part 3- The Tomato Sauce Base | Sybaritica

In Part 1 of our Sunday Gravy Experiment, I introduced you to the basic plan of creating a rich tomato sauce that will, over time, be fortified and enriched by having various meats and vegetables cooked in it for a series of different meals. In Part 2 of the series, I made a rich stock using pork hocks and beef bones and this will form the beginnings of the gravy itself. If you wish to follow along with the process but don’t really want to bother with making your own stock, you can always substitute a commercial chicken broth, but I think you will find the homemade really improves the final product.

In either event, it is now time to move on to making the actual tomato sauce…

The Ingredients

4 x 28oz cans of Diced Tomatoes
1 quart rich meat stock (not shown)
2 cups Onion, finely chopped
1 cup Celery, finely chopped
1 cup Carrot, finely chopped
1 head Garlic, cloves peeled and chopped
1 pint Red Wine
1 tsp. ground Black Pepper
1 – 2 tsp. Salt (or to taste)

In many recipes for tomato sauce, you will see other flavorings such as oregano, or thyme being added. However, for now, I want to keep the basic sauce as simple and generic as possible.

The Method

The first step will allow me to introduce two Italian cooking terms which may not be familiar to you: these are ‘Battuto’ and ‘Soffritto’. The battuto has an interesting culinary history but, in modern parlance, it generally is constituted by what is known in French cookery as a ‘Mirepoix’, and consists of finely chopped onion, celery and carrot, with garlic usually being added as well. Once this mélange is sautéed in some fat or other, it is then known as a soffritto and is a common flavor for many Italian dishes. Olive oil or butter are often used, but for this experiment, I will be using the tasty fat rendered from Pork Belly Confit experiment from not long ago.

To begin, melt your fat in a deep pot over moderate heat and then add the onions first. Sauté until they are translucent, but not browned, and then add the carrot. When this has softened slightly add the celery. Continue to sauté until the celery is soft as well and then add the garlic, the pepper and a generous pinch or two of salt.

Once the garlic has softened and you can smell the aroma, add the stock, the tomatoes and the wine. Bring this to a low boil and then turn down the heat, cover, and allow to simmer gently for one to two hours.

Once the sauce has cooked sufficiently and all the vegetables are broken down, you need to blend it to a smooth consistency. In a food processor, this will be a bit of a chore, so, if you have one, I recommend using an immersion blender. Once you have done this, you will need to continue simmering, this time uncovered, until the sauce reduces somewhat and takes on a consistency a little thicker than that of a commercial tomato soup. The time for this will vary depending on the initial fluidity, but an hour or two should suffice.

Here you can see a sample of the reduced sauce. For now, I will just be putting the whole batch into the fridge to await the next step in the project and to allow the flavors to develop. Since the whole point of this exercise is to see how long we can extend this sauce it will be necessary, from time to time, to reheat the sauce, even when it is not being used for a specific meal, so as to prevent it from going off. About once or twice a week will be necessary, and I will be keeping a running record of these operations as the experiment progresses.

Anyway… our sauce is still not strictly a Sunday gravy yet as we haven’t cooked any meat in yet. This will be the next part of the project…

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