Best recipe for tomato sauce/gravy/marinara sauce...?

Dave!

Hey folks,

Looking for the best recipe for a tomato sauce to have with meatballs and spaghetti... I've got a good recipe for the meatballs, so I'll give that a shot tomorrow, but I'm still experimenting to get the perfect sauce

It tends to just get overpowered by the spices, especially oregano, so gonna have to cut down a bit on that.

Also, how do you make the sauce more "solid"? I find it's too watery alot of the time.

Cheers folks

The Sweeper

Hmmm.... I don't put any onions in my meatballs, because I find they don't cook nicely when part of the meatball. I do, however, load them with garlic.

When making the tomato sauce subsequently, I use onions but no garlic. Sweat a finely chopped onion off in a mix of 1tbsp butter and 1tbsp olive oil. When transparent, add a finely diced green pepper and soften. Add a can of chopped tomatoes, a handful of chopped semi-sundried tomatoes, a tablespoon of tomato puree and a 1/4 pint of beef stock. Then add a teaspoon of smoked sweet paprika and season liberally with pepper and salt. Allow the sauce to cook over a low heat and taste for acidity - I use unrefined cane sugar to smooth the sauce out at this point, or a couple of squares of Green & Blacks dark chocolate.

I make up meatballs, toss them in flour and drop them into the simmering sauce to seal immediately in the heat, as opposed to frying them off first. The flour on the meatballs helps to thicken the sauce too.

Kurumba

The sauce I make for my meatballs is as follows:

1 medium onion
2/3 cloves garlic
1 can chopped tomatos
approx. 2 tablespoons of tomato puree
glass of red wine
Herbs: Small bit of dried oregano, dried rosemary (goes really well with meatballs,also add this to the meatball mixture), few chilli flakes to give it a kick.
Fresh herbs : chopped Basil.
Salt + pepper + 1 teaspoon of sugar.

Method:
*Fry onion and garlic until soft in Olive Oil, then add tinned tomatos.
*Add glass of wine and all dried herbs. Simmer for about 10 minutes.
*Add the tomato puree, salt and pepper and sugar and let simmer again for another few minutes.
*Blitz together if you can to make it smooth. Add the chopped fresh basil at this point so you don't lose the flavour of it.
*Then simmer for another few minutes, this will thicken the sauce up for you.
Pour over meatballs and serve!

* I sometimes add a couple of dried bayleaves and leave them there while simmering and remove at the end. Gives the sauce a lovely flavour.*

oblivious

Half teaspoon of baking powered added to the sauce will reduce the acid contain of tin tomato when cooking, it will also help smooth out the sauce

Minder

The acidity of tinned tomatoes can be reduced by leaving the tomatoes in a glass bowl overnight. Pop a couple of cloves of garlic and a few basil leaves in for good measure. This method was recommended to a friend by an Italian pizza master.

A light take on spagetti and meatballs.

Use minced veal,
Add finely chopped garlic, parsley and lemon rind,
Season,
Make small meatballs,
For the sauce, heat some good olive oil,
Add some more chopped garlic,
Scald a glass of dry white wine until the booze cooks off,
Add blitzed tinned tomatoes,
Drop in the veal meatballs.
Cover & cook gently for about 30 to 40 minutes.
Add some torn basil leaves at the end.
Dress some spagettini with the sauce and pile meatballs on top.
Finish with grated parmasean.

bonkey

Here's one I prepared earlier

Ok...credit where its due...its my wife's recipe, my sister did the cookbook, and another mate did the whole putting the cookbook online bit....so I didn't really prepare any of it.

Anyway...that's the tomato sauce we use as a base for pretty-much everything. We don't skin the tomatoes, cause we both like it that way, but if you don't like bits of skin, then either deskin, or use tinned skinless tomatoes. Also...tomatoes in Ireland can tend to be a lot less tasty than what we get here...in which case you may again prefer to go with tinned.

The thickness in this recipe, as should be obvious, comes from the flour

olaola

I always add some smoked paprika and a squirt of tomato puree. Never fails.

rockbeer

DaveMcG wrote: »

Also, how do you make the sauce more "solid"? I find it's too watery alot of the time.

Simmer it for a long time over a low heat. This will evaporate most of the liquid and concentrate the flavours, so you end up with a thick and delicious sauce.

If you haven't got time, some tomato puree thickens it up nicely, as olaola says.

Try this:

Gently sweat a finely chopped onion in olive oil until soft and transparent - 10 to 15 mins. Add 2 cloves crushed garlic about half way through (and a pinch of dried chilli flakes or a finely chopped fresh chilli with the seeds removed if you like it a little spicy).

When the onions are soft, add half to one tablespoon of white wine vinegar and one tablespoon of quality Japanese soy sauce (e.g. kikkoman or tamari, not the sugary chinese crap), then a tin of chopped tomatoes and a bayleaf or two.

Bring almost to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer uncovered over a very low heat until it's thickened. If you want to cook it even longer, put the lid on at first. Near the end you can add some herbs if you like it that way, or just enjoy it straight up.

Italian chefs cook tomato sauce for a very long time. Hours, literally.

This is a great basic sauce which you can adapt for almost any purpose. Add (more) chilli to make arabiata sauce for penne, or chiili, cumin and coriander (best just before you put in the vinegar) to make topping for nachos. Add liquid from hot-soaked dried mushrooms for a more earthy flavour (great spooned over grilled aubergines and baked with cheese on top).

Is there anything you can't you do with a good tomato sauce?

coisaille

Try this - the apple sounds weird but works really well with meatballs and pasta, my mum used to make this when I was a kid and I tried it again recently - a real seventies gem!

1 bottle tomato passata (or a tin of plum)
1 tasty apple (you can use a cooking apple)
1 onion
1/2 tsp sugar (to taste - depends on the apple)
salt

No garlic in this one either - normally essential in tomato sauce but better without here...
sweat onion, add toms + peeled and chopped apple, sugar and salt, simmer for a bit, blitz. You can add the cooked meatballs to this and cook them together for a while or just pour over the top when serving

neuro-praxis

I usually spend a bit of time over a nice tomato sauce, but occasionally I do the rushed version below, which is still delish, with some nice chilli meatballs from my local craft butcher.

1 jar/carton passata
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Dried mixed green herbs
Sugar

Mix, stir, heat! Fry off the meatballs and add. Couldn't be simpler.