Hi!, Chef Dad here, filling in this week for Chef Kayleigh. She asked me to fill in as there was a big wedding to work this past weekend and she’s way behind in all her other work, so I’m up. It’s been a while since I’ve written the last cooking blog, so please forgive my syntax errors. It’s the cookin’ that counts, right?
As some of you may know, my cooking skills were picked up from a variety of areas, but none more so than Italian cuisine and its techniques. I’ve been cooking the sauce for the pasta for a long time. It’s always been a variation on the same theme: sauté the garlic and onions in olive oil, add the celery and carrots, deglaze with the wine, sauté the meat (if you are making a meat sauce,) cook down the tomatoes for hours on the stovetop…whew! Sometimes I do it fast, sometimes I do it slow, but it’s always been this way when it comes to cooking the sauce.
But then I started seeing something different. Turns out this is not the only way to make sauce. In a previous Sunday’s New York Times, Sam Sifton wrote about a chicken parm recipe made on the grill with kale and a sauce he made from canned tomatoes using a technique which is new to me, but has been around forever. You put the tomatoes on a sheet pan and roast them in the oven under a hot broiler. Ten minutes and you’ve got a thick tomatoey sauce.
Then, I was reading some recipes in a new cooking magazine, and son of a gun, they put chopped fresh tomatoes on a sheet tray and roasted it in the oven. Voila! Fresh tomato sauce! OK, I’ve got to try this.
So I put the oven on to broil, put the rack up as high as I could, opened a can of peeled whole Italian San Marzano tomatoes, used a stick blender to chop ’em up pretty good, spread it out on a rimmed sheet tray and stuck it under the broiler for about 12 minutes. Out came this smoking red stuff, with most of the liquid cooked out. I let it cool for a moment, scraped it into a bowl, added some olive oil and salt and pepper and tasted it. This was good.
So I cooked up some dried tortellini I had in the pantry, slathered some sauce on it, grated a generous bit of my imported Parmigiano Reggiano (DOP) on it, and opened a 2013 Joel Gott Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, and, along with some fresh bread, had dinner. Here’s the steps for the tomatoes, you know how to cook the pasta! Al dente!!….
Simple Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
1 28-oz can whole San Marzano tomatoes
Kosher salt, to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil. (use the good stuff, trust me)
- Turn the oven to broil on high. Put the tomatoes in a food processor and whizz for a few seconds to chunk up the tomatoes. Or, put them in a bowl, and use a stick blender to break up the whole tomatoes.
- Pour the tomatoes into a small sheet pan with sides, and slide it under the broiler.
- Cook for 10-12 minutes, until much of the liquid has evaporated, and the sauce has thickened.
- Pull out the sheet tray, (warning, it’s hot!) and let it cool for a few minutes. Pour the sauce into a bowl, stir in the olive oil, and salt to taste.
That’s all it takes for a tasty tomato sauce, but here is where we can get creative. Go and cut some of those fresh herbs you’ve got growing in the garden, and add a bit to the sauce. Whatever combination you have on hand should brighten the sauce. Use your discretion and add the herbs to your taste. Or leave the sauce plain. The taste of reduced tomato can’t be beat served on your choice of cooked pasta, over chicken or even slathered on some summer grilled vegetables.
Oh, and of course, don’t forget the wine.
Bon Appétit!
[divider]
“Chef Dad” Len Van Vliet is the father of Kayleigh Van Vliet Baig. He lives in Riverhead.
