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TOMATO SAUCE (another way) (When gravy or stock is not)
When gravy or stock is not at hand, tomatoes may be sliced and stewed with a little butter, cayenne, and salt. If cooked in this, way, they should be pulped through a sieve just as if they had been simmered in gravy, and a little vinegar may be added to them if liked.
A stock-free tomato sauce reduced to its bones: fruit, butter, seasoning, sieve. The only real technique is the sieving, and how long you stew before you get there.
- Quantity and yieldThe original gives no amounts. Two pounds of ripe tomatoes with about 2 tablespoons of butter, salt and a pinch of cayenne yields roughly 1 to 1 1/2 cups of finished sauce, enough for four servings.
- Stew properly before sievingThis is the hinge. The tomatoes must break down completely over low heat, 20 to 30 minutes, until the flesh collapses and the liquid has thickened. Sieving underdone tomatoes leaves you with thin pink water and a lot of pulp in the strainer.
- Peeling is optional hereBecause everything goes through a sieve, there is no need to skin or seed the tomatoes first. Slice, stew, then press through a fine sieve or work the sauce through a food mill; the skins and seeds stay behind.
- Cayenne is the whole seasoningWith no stock, the flavour rests on butter, salt and heat. A pinch of cayenne is a genuine pinch, about 1/8 teaspoon for two pounds of fruit, enough to be felt at the back of the palate rather than tasted as chilli.
- The vinegarThe original leaves the vinegar entirely optional, 'if liked'. Modern supermarket tomatoes are often said to be sweeter and less sharp than older varieties, though this is hard to document; either way, a teaspoon of wine vinegar added at the end off the heat sharpens the sauce without turning it sour.
- Canned tomatoes workA 28 oz tin of whole plum tomatoes substitutes directly for two pounds of fresh and often gives a better result out of season. Drain off some of the packing liquid first or the sauce will need much longer to reduce.
- Butter at the endStewing in butter for half an hour dulls it. Use half the butter to start the tomatoes and beat the rest into the sieved sauce while it is still hot for a glossier finish.
This is one of the variations on tomato sauce, and the assumption behind it tells you how the Victorian kitchen thought about sauces: the proper version was built on gravy or stock from the day's meat, and this is the fallback for a household without a stockpot going. Ready meat gravy underpins a great many of the savoury sauces in English cookery books of the period. Tomatoes themselves had only become unremarkable in British kitchens over the course of the nineteenth century, moving from a suspect hothouse curiosity to a reliable seasonal vegetable as commercial glasshouse growing and, later, canning spread. The instruction to pulp everything through a sieve is characteristic of the era's taste in sauces, which prized a smooth, uniform texture.