Basic Tomato Sauce
This is a basic tomato sauce. Having this on hand will be very useful for many recipes. It requires at least one night in the refrigerator.
[Here is how to make “the basic tomato sauce”.]
In order to make a delicious tomato sauce, it is important to use “good” canned tomatoes. You might think “What!?” However, the tomato cans are very different from brand to brand. With that said, please be as particular with your choice of canned tomatoes as you are with your soy sauce or miso (bean paste). I would recommend one with soft pulp and thick concentration.
I use this brand called Solleone. This is a bigger size can (about 2.5kg/5.5 pounds) for professional use. There is a smaller size as well.
You can find Solleone at supermarkets relatively easy.
[Ingredients]
2 Whole cans of Solleone tomatoes (about 400g per can/ about 0.9 pounds)
1/2 of a medium size onion
1 clove garlic
Olive oil to saute onion & garlic
First, you will finely chop the garlic, and the onion. Second, put the olive oil in to just about cover the garlic. Have the pan tilted over low heat, occasionally stirring. Once the garlic is golden brown, add the onion. You will stir fry slowly until the moisture of the onion is gone and the sweetness gets condensed.
Once the color gets like this, it is ready.
Next add the cleaned tomatoes to the garlic/onion mixture.
Chef’s notes: How to clean canned tomatoes.
Pour the tomatoes into a bowl. Then, remove the calyx and the seeds. Although it is hard to to remove all the seeds, try as much as possible. When you complete this, put the tomatoes into a different bowl.
After removing the seeds, squeeze the tomatoes by hand. Second, mix cleaned tomatoes into garlic/onion preparation. As for the juice with the seeds and the calyx, mix it into the pan by straining/filtering. The picture is a strainer called “Chinois”. You can use a regular colander instead. (It is just hard to clean later!)
Over high heat, stir the sauce very well with a wooden spatula scraping the bottom of the pan, until boiling. Turn the heat down to low.
Boiling the sauce and then reducing the heat and stirring dissipates the sourness/acidity of the onions and tomatoes, making them sweet.
Once it becomes as the picture shown (the cooking time depends on which whole tomato can/brand you use, the size of a pot, and heating power, etc…so cook it until it looks like the picture shown). Let it cool in a storage container. Once it gets cooled, keep it in a refrigerator over night. This is a very important part, It is just like “next day curry”. This process makes tomato sauce “mellow”.
This sauce is done after a night in a refrigerator.