Answer: the best tomato sauce does not exist.
For sure “the best” correspond to personal liking of each of us. This is a “relative” best.
To be the best, you must have the best extra virgin olive oil, the best organic sun ripe tomatoes, the best garlic, the best garden basil, the best salt. This option correspond to the “absolute” best.
But, you know what? There are numerous “best”, all of them different. Especially if you combine the “relative best” with the ”absolute best”.
Starting from the varieties of tomatoes: WOW! How many of them do you know? Which is the best?
Generally, for a tomato sauce we need a tomato which is ripe, pulpy, with a few seeds, preferebly soft skin. A green tomato would make a sour sauce. Unless you like it in this way….
Above I have listed 5 basic ingredients: of each of them there is a large variety and this causes a diverse result: besides tomatoes, we have to count also the quality of the extra virgin olive oil, the scent (less or more mint-y) of the basil, the spicy and the freshness of the garlic, the grade of saltiness of the salt.
And…what if we change also the “flavor builders”?: onion, carrot, shallot, celery…and what about herbs? Oregano, marjoram, parsley… and their combinations as well.
We are entering a labyrinth.
To make it easy, let’s get stuck on the simple recipe below and try to understand what is that make it “the best” (still with relative sense) and why.
SALSA DI POMODORO – TOMATO SAUCE
Ingredients for 4:
1 kg (2 Pd) ripe tomatoes
3 garlic cloves ( or maybe just one? we are still in the “relative best”)
50 gr (1 + ½ Oz) Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 fresh basil leaves
salt to taste
Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for 1 minute, then put them in cold water to stop the cooking. Peel them, cut in wedges, remove the seeds and puree them.
In a saucepan, sauté the garlic cloves in the Extra virgin Olive Oil until starts to sizzle.
Add the pureed tomatoes and salt and cook for about ten minutes, depending on variety and ripeness. Add the basil leaves at the end of the cooking, off from the heat.
Alternatively: cut the tomatoes in chunks. Put them in the pan with the warm olive oil and garlic. Add salt and cook until tender. Add the basil, cook a few more minutes to get the taste. Pass the whole thing through a food mill, so that seeds and skin would be separated from the clean pulp.
Have you noticed the words in bold?
Those are the real technical tricks.
Warm up the oil but DON’T BRING IT TO THE SMOKE POINT. This is valid for any kind of oil. When an oil smokes it means that it is forming acrolein, a substance that is toxic for the liver and with a potential cancer activity.
Second trick: if you “professionally” blanch, peel the tomatoes, then you cut them in quarters and take off the seeds, you eliminate also the gelatine that surrounds them. The “best thing” to do is to follow the “Alternatively”: use all the parts of the tomatoes and then make a smooth sauce passing it through the nonna’s passaverdura!
Marcella Ansaldo © 2023
Photos by Marta Mariuz © 2023