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Tomato Sauce (Cup butter onion finely)
1/3 cup butter 1 onion, finely chopped 3/4 teaspoon salt Few grains pepper 1 small can condensed tomato 2/3 Ib. lean beef Cook first four ingredients eight minutes. Add tomato, 1 pint of water, and beef cut in small pieces, and cook one and one-half hours. Remove meat before serving. Ravioli is a national Italian dish, and the cheese and condensed tomato may be best bought of an Italian grocer.
A long-simmered meat-flavored tomato sauce of the sort meant to be spooned over ravioli or boiled pasta. The beef is a flavoring agent, not an ingredient of the finished sauce.
- Condensed tomatoThis means canned tomato purée or paste, not the modern condensed tomato soup. The recipe specifies only "1 small can"; period can sizes varied, so start with a few tablespoons of paste or a scant cup of purée and judge by taste.
- The beef is for flavorTwo-thirds of a pound of lean beef, cut small, gives the sauce body and savor over the long simmer and is then discarded or eaten separately. Chuck or shin works better than a lean steak cut; the connective tissue dissolves into the sauce.
- Cook the aromatics gentlyEight minutes of butter, onion, salt and pepper should soften the onion without browning it. Keep the heat low enough that the butter does not color.
- Simmer, not boilAn hour and a half at a bare simmer, partly covered, is what reduces the pint of water to sauce consistency. At a hard boil the water goes too fast and the tomato scorches on the bottom of the pan; add a little water if it tightens before the time is up.
- Season at the endThree-quarters of a teaspoon of salt is measured against a pint of water that will largely evaporate. Taste after reducing and adjust rather than trusting the original figure.
- YieldAbout 1 1/2 to 2 cups of finished sauce, enough to dress pasta or ravioli for four.
Sauces like this one sit at the point where American home cooking was beginning to borrow from Italian immigrant kitchens as well as from French cookery. The note that cheese and canned tomato "may be best bought of an Italian grocer" is the telling detail: tinned tomato purée and grating cheese were still treated as specialty goods, and neighborhood importers were the reliable source. Simmering beef in tomato and then removing it recalls the Italian practice of cooking a piece of meat in sauce and serving meat and sauce separately.