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Tomato Sauce (Dozen large ripe tomatoes)
1/2 dozen large ripe tomatoes; 1/2 cupful meat gravy or good stock; 1 blade mace; 2 shallots; 2 cloves; 1/2 teaspoonful salt; 1/4 teaspoonful paprika. Cut the tomatoes in halves and scoop out the seeds. Put them in a saucepan with the gravy or stock; add the seasoning, and stew slowly for half an hour or longer. Press through a sieve and return the pulp to the saucepan; bring to a boil, and serve very hot with cutlets or roast meat. If objectionable, the mace, cloves, or shallots may be omitted, or a small minced onion may be stewed with the tomatoes in place of any shallots. Some prefer the flour of the tomatoes or other seasoning than is given by the gravy, salt, and pepper.
When done, the sauce should be of the consistency of thick cream. Should it be too thin, boil it down quickly; if too thick, add a little more gravy or stock.
A plain stewed-tomato sauce thickened only by reduction, meant to be spooned over chops or roast meat. The whole method hinges on cooking it down far enough.
- QuantityThe heading and the ingredient line disagree on how many tomatoes are wanted; the working list calls for half a dozen -- six -- large ripe tomatoes, stewed with a half cup of stock.
- A blade of maceMace is the dried outer covering of the nutmeg seed, sold whole in curved "blades" or ground. A blade is generally reckoned at somewhere between a quarter and a half teaspoon of ground mace, but the ground spice cannot be fished out later, so add it sparingly.
- ShallotsThese would have been ordinary small shallots, not the large banana shallots now common. If substituting, the recipe itself calls for one small minced onion in place of the shallots.
- Meat gravy or stockThe "good stock" intended here would have been homemade and lightly salted at most. Commercial broth and bouillon are already salted, so hold back the half teaspoon of salt until the sauce has reduced and been tasted.
- Seeding the tomatoesScooping out the seeds removes water and so speeds the reduction. Skins are left on because everything goes through a sieve; press hard with a ladle and discard only the skins and spice debris.
- The consistency test"Thick cream" is the target and the only real doneness cue. Half an hour of slow stewing is a minimum, not a finish time; ripe summer tomatoes may need twice that, and the final quick boil-down is where the sauce actually comes together.
- Pan choiceUse stainless steel or enamelled cast iron. A long simmer of acidic tomato in bare cast iron or aluminium picks up a metallic taste.
- ServingIt separates as it stands. Reheat and whisk briefly before it goes to the table, and serve it genuinely hot as directed, since a lukewarm reduction tastes flat.