This is not a recipe post as such, but a suggestion post. I recently tried some recipes out of The Northend Italian Cookbook, which Grandmom gave me with high recommendations, and they were delicious. Now, that cookbook is relatively current, and I feel bad about potentially defrauding the author, Maria DeMino Buonopane, who looks like a very nice woman based on her author photograph on the back. So, I'm not going to include those exact recipes here. However, I did discover by trying out those recipes the answers to some culinary mysteries and, since I have been eating those culinary mysteries from Grandmom's kitchen my whole life I don't feel that it's unethical to reproduce those here.
Mystery #1: Why does Grandmom's tomato sauce taste so good, and so different from, jarred sauce?
The first thing that jumps to your mind (as it did to mine) was a matter of freshness, seasoning, and ingredient choice. However, the ingredients used (and not used) in the pasta sauce I buy are almost identical (as far as I knew) to the homemade variety. In addition, jarred sauce avoids the metalic taste from traditional canning. Still, it just wasn't the same. Through happy accident, I discovered mystery ingredient number 1, and The Northend Italian Cookbook revealed the second mystery ingredient.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #1: rendered meat fat.
If you brown your sausages, meatballs, porkchops (yes, porkchops) or whatever meat you plan on putting in your tomato sauce in your sauce pot first, set them aside, and then proceed to make the sauce, your sauce will have this delicious meaty quality. (You will still need to add some olive oil after you remove the meat from the pan so you can saute your onions and garlic-- just not as much.) After you've got the sauce looking like a sauce, add the meat back in and cook everything all together the way you would a meat-free sauce-- about 1 hour on a low simmer.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #2: fresh mint!
I haven't tried this in a meat sauce like the one I describe above, but in a meat-free red sauce, the fresh mint in delicious. Instead of the pepperiness of fresh basil (also good) you get a milder zip, as well as the sweetening qualities of mint. I think this is why commercial tomato sauce typically has added sugar. But it just can't compare.
Mystery #2: When I saute garlic for a dish, it just doesn't have as much garlicky goodness as when Grandmom does it.
Mystery Step: Frizzle the garlic in a ton of oil. Half-burn it. We're cooking Italian, right? If you want less garlic, go eat a taco. For a sauce I don't know if I would recommend doing it this way. However, for something that has garlic as a main flavor (for example the broccoli rabe recipe I posted recently), don't be shy on the number of cloves you use, and once you've minced your garlic, heat about 3-5 TB. oil in a pan until it's hot!!!! and then throw in your garlic. Push it around in the pan a few times to keep it from actually burning, but it should turn a deep golden brown and even puff up a little. Basically you're deep-frying garlic on a very small scale. But the result is an oil full of a bold, nutty garlic flavor, perfect for dipping bread in, pouring over fresh cooked greens, or tossing into pasta with some parmesan cheese.
Mystery #1: Why does Grandmom's tomato sauce taste so good, and so different from, jarred sauce?
The first thing that jumps to your mind (as it did to mine) was a matter of freshness, seasoning, and ingredient choice. However, the ingredients used (and not used) in the pasta sauce I buy are almost identical (as far as I knew) to the homemade variety. In addition, jarred sauce avoids the metalic taste from traditional canning. Still, it just wasn't the same. Through happy accident, I discovered mystery ingredient number 1, and The Northend Italian Cookbook revealed the second mystery ingredient.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #1: rendered meat fat.
If you brown your sausages, meatballs, porkchops (yes, porkchops) or whatever meat you plan on putting in your tomato sauce in your sauce pot first, set them aside, and then proceed to make the sauce, your sauce will have this delicious meaty quality. (You will still need to add some olive oil after you remove the meat from the pan so you can saute your onions and garlic-- just not as much.) After you've got the sauce looking like a sauce, add the meat back in and cook everything all together the way you would a meat-free sauce-- about 1 hour on a low simmer.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #2: fresh mint!
I haven't tried this in a meat sauce like the one I describe above, but in a meat-free red sauce, the fresh mint in delicious. Instead of the pepperiness of fresh basil (also good) you get a milder zip, as well as the sweetening qualities of mint. I think this is why commercial tomato sauce typically has added sugar. But it just can't compare.
Mystery #2: When I saute garlic for a dish, it just doesn't have as much garlicky goodness as when Grandmom does it.
Mystery Step: Frizzle the garlic in a ton of oil. Half-burn it. We're cooking Italian, right? If you want less garlic, go eat a taco. For a sauce I don't know if I would recommend doing it this way. However, for something that has garlic as a main flavor (for example the broccoli rabe recipe I posted recently), don't be shy on the number of cloves you use, and once you've minced your garlic, heat about 3-5 TB. oil in a pan until it's hot!!!! and then throw in your garlic. Push it around in the pan a few times to keep it from actually burning, but it should turn a deep golden brown and even puff up a little. Basically you're deep-frying garlic on a very small scale. But the result is an oil full of a bold, nutty garlic flavor, perfect for dipping bread in, pouring over fresh cooked greens, or tossing into pasta with some parmesan cheese.
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