Basic Tomato Sauce (Pomodoro)

Basic Tomato Sauce

A reader responded to my post on pizza dough with the following bleg:  "Thanks for the post on dough, but what about a pizza sauce recipe?"   For you, of course, basic tomato sauce along with some thoughts about Italian pizza.

Ruminations:  Typically in Italy, each person orders his own pizza, which is eaten with a knife and fork.   The crust is very thin and it is not heavily dressed, with about two tablespoons of sauce for a 10-inch pie.  The emphasis is on the freshest and highest quality ingredients; simply put, quality over quantity.   This also means the Italian pizza has far fewer calories than the typical American pizza.

Tomato sauce theory:  Tomato sauce (pomodoro) is simply a reduction of fresh tomatoes sauteed with a clove or two of garlic, with the garlic being removed prior to running the sauce through a food mill (passatutto).  Some people enjoy the bite that a pinch of crushed red pepper provides when added during the sauté, others like a little diced onion.   

Tomato sauce recipe: The following tomato sauce recipe is adapted from the kitchen of Stile Mediterraneo, a wonderful cooking school near Lecce, Italy.  www.stilemediterraneo.it.  I am grateful to Cinzia and Marika Rascazzo for showing me how to shop for tomatoes and prepare a sauce based on their grandmother's Puglian technique.  Cinzia and Marika would be the first to tell you this is not a pizza sauce recipe because the sauce is not from a region where pizza was traditionally cooked. I find the sauce works well on pizza and have adapted it to that use, in addition to its classical use dressing orecchietti, Puglia's famous duram wheat pasta shaped like little ears. 

Wash two pounds of very ripe vine tomatoes (preferably still on the vine), dry, and cut in half.    Place tomatoes in a pot with olive oil, two peeled cloves of garlic, and a pinch of crushed red pepper.  Saute over low to medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer for approximately 15-20 minutes, with the pot's lid ajar, remembering to stir the pot every few minutes.

(Note:  If necessary, you can substitute high quality canned tomatoes, such as whole, peeled San Marzano, if ripe tomatoes are not available.)

Remove the garlic from the pot and discard.  Run the sauce through a food mill using the disk with the finest (smallest) holes,  so that the skins and seeds are separated from the sauce.  Add a generous pinch of salt or two and cook the sauce for another 15 minutes or so to reduce it further.  

Hint: If the sauce is particularly thin (sometimes the tomatoes are plump with water), add a tablespoon of tomato paste to the sauce and cook over low heat for another 5 minutes.

Dress a 10-inch pie with about 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce, sprinkle a little fresh oregano, if desired, and dot the top of the pie with a few pieces of fresh mozzarella, or fresh mozzarella di buffala.  Add other ingredients, as desired, while taking care not to overdress your pizza.

Note:  This simple sauce freezes well, and can be used for tomato-based pasta sauces such as garlic and basil, meat sauces, and butter and onion sauce, simply by adding the tomato sauce after sautéing the other ingredients.

Red Wine: Is There Anything it Cannot Do?

This article from the Toronto Sun discusses new research extolling the health benefits associated with moderate consumption of red wine, including the following:

"Italian researchers observed that exposing cells from breast cancer patients to resveratrol caused a marked reduction in their growth. This effect is caused by a drastic reduction in the receptor's exposure to estrogen, a protein often associated with the progression of breast tumours. More importantly, the study showed that resveratrol could stop the growth of cancer cells resistant to tamoxifen, a medication currently being used to treat hormone-dependant breast cancers.

These results suggest that resveratrol could serve as a model for the development of cancer-fighting agents that could be used to treat women who have become resistant to hormone therapies."

Salute!

http://m.torontosun.com/2011/12/24/make-it-merlot

Pizza Dough Recipes

A friend wrote that she received a pizza stone for Christmas, requesting a pizza dough recipe.  I sent her two, one from the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners and the other a basic dough recipe from my personal collection.

Thought I would share both recipes here, in case anyone is looking to roll some dough. This photo is of a pizza I made one day in class at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners.  Buon appetito! 

Pizza Dough Recipe from Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners

Please note:  this recipe is in grams, but most scales are calibrated in both ounces and grams, just switch the button. 

This recipe makes 4 thin pies. 

500 grams of unbleached white flour (usually a cup is about 100 grams)
250 grams of water (tepid)
5 grams of dry yeast
12 grams of salt
Semolina flour for rolling and baking


1.  Mix yeast in about 1/2 of the tepid water, set aside.

2.  In a mixing bowl, mix salt and flour with remaining of water, mixing with a spoon or by hand.  Add the the yeast and water mixture, completely incorporating it into the flour mixture.

3.  Remove the dough from the bowl.  Work the dough by hand, stretching, folding and turning,  for about 12 minutes.

4.  Divide into four balls, place in pan with semolina flour, cover with plastic, and let rise until dough doubles in size.

5.  Roll with pin into very thin pies, rolling on a surface covered with semolina flour.

Bake in a very hot oven, at least 650 degrees.

ICIF tip:  you can make dough balls in advance, keep plastic wrapped in fridge, and remove from fridge about an hour before you need to roll them.



Sicola's Basic Pizza Dough Recipe

This recipe makes 2 round 12" pizzas, depending on how thin you roll them.

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast.
1 cup lukewarm water
3 cups unbleached flour
1/4 cup semolina flour
Extra virgin olive oil (1 tablespoon for the dough, 1 teaspoon for the bowl)
1/2 tablespoon salt
cornmeal (or semolina)

1.  Mix both flours together in a bowl and set aside.

2.  In a separate large bowl, dissolve yeast by dissolving into 1/4 cup of water.  When dissolved, in about 5 minutes, add 1 cup of the flour mixture and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.  Continuing to stir, add 1 tbs. olive oil, 1/4 tbs. salt, and another 1 cup of flour mixture.  Continue to stir with spoon.  Add only enough of the remaining amounts of water and flour to create a manageable dough, soft but not sticky. 

Remove the dough from the bowl and work it as follows:  Slap it hard on a work counter several times, until it stretches to 9-10 inches.  Fold the far end halfway towards you, push it out with the palm of your hand, rotate it a 1/4 turn, fold it toward you, stretch with the palm of your hand, rotate, repeat for about 10 minutes. Then pat the dough into a round ball.

Or:  use a food processor in lieu of these first two steps!!!!

3.  grease the inside of a clean bowl with 1 tsp. of olive oil.  Place the dough in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap. Set bowl aside until dough has risen, about 3 hours.

Or: use a breadmaker for these first three steps!!!

4.  At least 30 minutes before you are to bake, place the baking stone in the oven and heat oven to 450 or 500, or even much higher, depending on your personal preference and oven.

5. Sprinkle the baker's paddle generously with cornmeal (or semolina).  Take 1/2 dough and roll it out on the paddle as thinly as possible, leaving the edges a little higher.  If you don't have a paddle, roll on a surface covered with cornmeal (or semolina).

6.  Dress the pizza as desired, use paddle to slide it onto stone, baking for 15-25 minutes, depending in the oven temperature you chose (20 minutes for 450 degrees, as a general rule).

Repeat process for remaining dough.

Fifteen Pounds of Meatballs

Learned how to "open the kitchen" on day three of my stage.  It was fast and furious during lunch, which was (wo)manned by chef and owner Susan Devereaux.  During lunch I prepped some salads and jumped in to prepare a ravioli dish (butternut squash in a sage and butter sauce) when our chef had to momentarily step away from the kitchen.

  For lunch I enjoyed a cup of the soup of the day -- an onion soup made with a chicken broth base -- followed by the ravioli and a caprese salad.  

During the early evening I prepared 15 pounds of meatballs, then settled in for a nice Montepulciano di Abruzzo, compliments of the kind proprietors of Guido's in Durango, Colorado.

A long and productive day.

Lasagna and Stuffed Zucchini

Day two of my stage was both short and mercifully light on the chopping.  I was left to work without much intervention following, of course, the restaurant's recipes.  Working only one shift, I prepared stuffed zucchini and a very large cheese lasagna.

The lasagna, which I ate at the end of my shift, was a solid, standard Italian American lasagna.  Clearly a crowd favorite, given the number I've seen ordered during two days.

The stuffed zucchini was interesting.    The vegetable was sliced in half with the pulp removed, creating boats.  The pulp was mixed with mortadella, Parmesan cheese, balsamella (a/k/a beschamel) sauce and a trade secret ingredient or two, which then was filled in the zucchini hulls, topped with Parmesan, and baked.  Delicious.

Day three I am scheduled to work open to close.  Mama Mia!

Soffritto

Soffritto is the Italian term for the vegetables (typically celery, carrot and onion--sometimes described as the kitchen's Holy Trinity) which serve as the flavor base for a wide number of dishes, such as stocks, soups, stews and sauces.  Before these vegetables are sautéed (I prefer extra virgin olive oil but many favor butter or a mix of butter and oil), they have to be chopped. 

I'm sure it's an obsessive compulsive tic, but I love to chop vegetables.  This is a good thing, because yesterday I prepared the soffritto for restaurant-size portions of ragu and sauce for osso buco.  I was weirdly content with hours of chopping, but today my right arm feels ridiculously sore.  I see Advil in my future.

The workday ended with an awesome Margherita pizza (very thin crust made from a dough of white and semolina flour) and a glass of Primativo, compliments of Guido's Restaurant.  Today, sauce preparations with my lovingly chopped soffritto.

The Stage

Part of the Master's Course at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners is "the stage" -- an externship, or practicum-- at an approved restaurant in Italy.  Because of visa problems, I was unable to complete the stage in Italy.  I resolved my frustration by  traveling Italy for a month with two classmates, touring wineries, taking a cooking course, and eating lots of great food.  And spending December with family and loved ones.  Things have a way of working out. The stories of my classmates' stage experiences in Italy run the gamut, some describing slave-like working and living conditions, others complaining of rampant sexism, and a few lucky ones reporting great experiences.  Most of my classmates left their stage within a few days or weeks, citing various reasons from work conditions, to responsibilities back home, to the need for dental work. My luck continued to hold as the school put me in touch with Sean Devereaux, a graduate of ICIF who owns a restaurant in Durango, Colorado.  Guido's Restaurant emphasizes the school's philosophy and techniques.  In other words, the food is Italian, not the typical fat-laden Italian American fare.  Sean has graciously accepted me as an intern. Guido's has a great website: http://www.guidosfavoritefoods.com/. After sixteen hours of driving I finally arrived in Durango, a lovely and charming town which has maintained its 1800s Western feel. I start work today.