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Beniamino's Red Sauce

This is it, this is my tomato sauce. Do it this way or DIE haha just kidding, it’s good though. And use the anchovies, they dissolve, it’s fine. Skip ’em and sub the butter for more olive oil if you need it vegan.

This recipe is modified from Kenji’s to be lazier.


— Ben

Ingredients

  • 1 6lb can of San Marzanos (Costco’s big ol cans do it just fine)
  • 2 Carrots, washed and with the greens trimmed off
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 3 stalks of celery
  • 2 whole anchovies in olive oil
  • Half a stick of salted butter
  • An entire head of garlic, more or less peeled
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • Juice of half a lemon

Optional:

  • The anchovies are not optional, nice try.
  • Sometimes if I have an old dried out parmesan rind, I’ll throw that bad boy in.
  • You can throw in a cayenne pepper in the beginning or mixin some powdered or flaked with the salt to spice it up.

Instructions

  1. Heat the oil and butter in a big pot.
  2. Drop the onion, carrots, celery, garlic in while you do this next part.
  3. Grab the tomatoes from the can and squish them in your hand. Beware of overspray from these juicy lil tommies.
  4. Once you’ve finished crushing all these tomatoes with your iron first, scoop the errant tomato skins, leaves, and basil from the can.
  5. Add 1/2 of the tomato juice from the can into the pot.
  6. Add your anchovies and cheese rinds.
  7. Bring to boil.
  8. Reduce for hours and hours (at least 2), until desired consistency.
  9. Remove carrots, onion, celery, garlic. You can save these for minestrone.
  10. Pour the remaining tomato juice from the can into the pot, add your lemon juice.
  11. Salt to taste.

You’re done reducing when the sauce as a soft, jammy texture and the taste is extremely savory. It will be sweet, but not ‘bright’. Kenji recommends doing this process in an oven-safe pot and reducing in the oven at ~250 for 6+ hours. I find I prefer to simmer it on stovetop for 2 and mix to prevent burning.

Reintroducing the half-can of tomato juice and adding lemon juice fills out the flavor with the ‘brightness’ we lost in reducing. If you find that it’s still not sweet enough, add sugar, I guess.

And remember, if you’re dressing pasta with this sauce, mix in a half-cup of starchy pasta water to help it stick to your noodles.