Dear Eric: Do you have a recipe for a (tomato-based) vegetarian spaghetti sauce? I’ve tried a lot of different ones, but having had so much luck with every one of your recipes that I've made, I’d like to see what you come up with.
Judy
You know tomatoes are in season and abundant when three friends, over a 24-hour period, bring you some from their garden. That happened last week and because they looked so fine I took them, despite the fact that my wife had just come home with a whole box of wonderfully ripe tomatoes.
My wife is research and development chef for Epicure, a local company that direct-markets its food products across Canada. The company’s headquarters is on a sprawling rural property in North Saanich with extra plots of land for farming.
Seeding some of those plots is John Rees, who is fondly known as “Farmer John.” It’s the perfect handle for him, because everything he grows seems to be heaven sent and full of flavour.
Every day, the lucky staff at Epicure are able buy the mix of produce he grows. On the weekend, though, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, the public can also buy it from a farm stand Rees sets up on the property at 10555 West Saanich Rd.
Roma tomatoes, also called plum tomatoes, because of their rich flavour and dense, meaty flesh are my favourite tomatoes for making sauce. But the box of Farmer John-grown tomatoes my wife came home with were a mix of beefsteak tomatoes and another type called “ultra sweet.” They were so deeply red, tasty, juicy and full of flesh that I decided they, too, would be fine for sauce.
I started making that sauce by first removing the skin and seedzs from each tomato, which I did primarily for textural reasons. To concentrate the already rich taste of the tomatoes even more, I slow-roasted them for two hours, topped with olive oil and garlic.
The heavenly aromatic roasted tomatoes were puréed and then added to a pot of sautéed diced onions, celery and green bell peppers. I added herbs and spices for flavouring, a bit of wine, and then simmered the sauce a while until thickened a bit and divine tasting.
This sauce could be spooned over, or tossed with, spaghetti or other pasta. It could also be used in lasagna, be spread on pizza, or be used as a sauce for such things as eggplant Parmigiana. The sauce could also be easily turned into a tomato soup by whisking in a touch of whipping cream just before serving, ensuring you don’t boil it afterward.
I’m not going to kid you Judy, there’s a fair bit of work involved in making the sauce, but I think you’ll find it a pleasurable task and well worth the effort.
Roasted Tomato Marinara Sauce
This recipe yields about two litres of sauce that freezes well. If you have a lot of tomatoes, though, this recipe could be doubled.
Preparation: one hour
Cooking time: About two hours 45 minutes
Makes: About two litres
6 lbs. ripe red tomatoes, such as beefsteak, ultra sweet and/or roma tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 medium celery ribs, finely chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp fennel seeds, coarsely crushed (see Note)
• a few pinches crushed chili flakes
1/2 cup red or white wine, or vegetable stock
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut the stem end out of each tomato; mark a shallow X at the top of the blossom end. Plunge the tomatoes, a few at a time, into the boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, or until the skins start to loosen. Use a slotted spoon to lift the tomatoes out of the water, set on a large baking pan and cool a few minutes. Now pull off the skin from each tomato.
Preheat the oven to 225 F. Line a second large baking pan with parchment paper.
Cut the tomatoes in half. Set a fine sieve over a bowl and squeeze or pull out the seeds into the sieve. Set the seeded tomato halves, cut side up, in a single layer in the baking pan. Use a whisk to push out as much liquid as you can from the tomato seed mixture. Discard the seeds. Refrigerate the tomato liquid.
Combine the 1/4 cup oil and garlic in a small bowl. Spoon and spread this mixture over the tomatoes in the pan; season with salt and pepper. Roast the tomatoes, uncovered, for two hours.
Set the tomatoes and all the juices in the pan in a bowl and mix in the reserved strained tomato juice. Now purée the tomatoes with an immersion (hand) blender. (The puréeing of the tomatoes could also be done in a food processor or blender.) Set the puréed tomatoes aside.
Place the 2 Tbsp oil in a large pot set over medium heat. Add the onion, celery and bell pepper and cook until tender, about five to seven minutes. Add the basil, oregano, fennel seeds and chili flakes and cook and stir one minute more.
Add the puréed tomatoes, wine (or stock), bay leaves and tomato paste. Bring the sauce to a gentle simmer and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 30 to 40 minutes, or until thickened to the desired consistency and rich tasting. Discard the bay leaves, and then stir in the parsley. Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper, as needed.
You can use some of the sauce now. The rest could be cooled to room temperature, transferred to freezer containers or bags, and labelled, dated and frozen for up to six months.
Note: You can coarsely crush the fennel seeds in a spice grinder, or by placing them in a thick plastic bag and hitting them with a kitchen hammer.
Eric Akis is the author of The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook (Appetite by Random House). His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
