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Tomato Sauce
1/4 onion 1 clove of garlic 1 small stalk of celery 1 sprig parsley 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 2 bay leaves 2 tablespoons fat (melted) 8 medium sized tomatoes or a No. 2 can Chop onion, garlic, celery and parsley together and season, and put in a pan with the fat. Cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly. Add either the fresh tomatoes cut into cubes or the canned tomato. Cook on a slow fire until the juice, condensing, is the consistency of thin custard. Strain through a fine wire strainer or cloth. This sauce can be used either hot or cold on meats, fish or spaghetti.
A plain cooked-and-strained tomato sauce of the sort every mid-century American menu book carried as a base. The only real judgment call is how far to reduce it.
- A No. 2 canThat is the old commercial size holding about 2 1/2 cups, roughly 20 fl oz. A 28 oz can measured out to 2 1/2 cups is the closest match; a 14.5 oz can would need about 3/4 cup of water to make up the volume. Eight medium tomatoes come to somewhere around 2 to 2 1/2 lb.
- "Fat (melted)"The unspecified melted fat would most likely have been a rendered kitchen fat such as bacon drippings, lard or beef fat. Olive oil or butter works, and either shifts the flavor of the finished sauce.
- The consistency cue"Thin custard" means it coats a spoon and just barely runs off — thicker than juice, thinner than paste. With canned tomato that is 25 to 40 minutes at a bare simmer; fresh tomatoes are wetter and may need an hour.
- Slow fireKeep it at a lazy simmer with only occasional bubbles. A hard boil scorches the sugars against the pan bottom and turns the sauce bitter, and no amount of straining removes that.
- Bay leavesTwo dried leaves in this volume is assertive by current taste. Fish them out before straining, or use one.
- StrainingPress the solids firmly against the strainer with the back of a ladle rather than letting it drip — most of the body is in the pulp, and a passive strain gives you thin, sharp liquid.
- YieldRoughly 1 to 1 1/2 cups of finished sauce, depending on how far it is reduced and how much pulp is pressed through.
- KeepingIt holds about three to five days refrigerated and freezes well. It is not acidified or processed for shelf storage, so do not can it.