Remembering Pompeii with homemade tomato sauce

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I still had some mason jars left over after making jam with Squeaky, so I decided to try my hand at canning tomato sauce next. I adapted a delicious recipe given to me by Chef Hermann Jenny that uses canned tomatoes instead of fresh.

I used San Marzano tomatoes. You can get these at any Italian grocer (I got mine from La Bottega in Byward Market). They are grown and imported all the way from the fertile plains of Mount Vesuvius near Naples, shown in the map below. Pompeii, that famous ancient Roman city buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., is also nearby. It's just a little southwest of where they still grow the tomatoes in San Marzano sul Sarno.

It's strange to think that the same volcanic ash that makes San Marzano tomatoes so special today was also responsible for burying entire cities over 2,000 years ago. That said, San Marzano tomatoes are not native to the region. Coincidentally, just 22 years after archeologists uncovered the remains of Pompeii in 1748, the Kingdom of Peru gave the first San Marzano seeds to the Kingdom of Naples.


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Tomato sauce
makes about 6 and a half cups

drop of olive oil
1/2 cup diced pancetta or bacon
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
2 crushed dried cayenne peppers (or 1 tsp dried)
1 cup olive oil
5 Tbsp tomato paste
2 800-g cans of San Marzano tomatoes
a 1" by 3"piece of parmesan rind or other hard cheese
small hunk of salt pork rind
1/2 Tbsp herbes de Provence
a couple of beef bouillon cubes
1 Tbsp oregano
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the pancetta and the onions in the olive oil for about 10 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and the dried cayenne pepper and saute another minute. Add the tomato paste and stir to make a paste with the other ingredients.

Then add the canned tomatoes and break them apart a bit with your wooden spoon. Add the rest of the ingredients and cover and cook in the oven for three hours at 125 C/250 F.

Discard the salt pork rind and bay leaves. The parmesan rind should easily break up and dissolve into the sauce.

Follow the canning directions that come with your preserving jars, and top each jar with a layer of hot olive oil, about 1/4 of an inch think to sterilize the top layer of sauce.

Alternatively, you can freeze the sauce if you'll be keeping it for more than a few weeks, but in that case, store it in a Tupperware instead of a glass jar.

This is lovely in pasta or pizza, and to spread on toast!

Guest post by Ella: Italian tomato sauce

Guest post by Ella: Italian tomato sauce, originally uploaded by beFOODled.

This simple and tasty sauce is a staple in Europe. Everyone has their own little spin on it and you’ll see that it’s just so much better than store-bought tomato sauce.

Ingredients:
green onions or white onion
garlic
two cans of chopped tomatoes
bouillion cubes
olive oil
sugar
salt
bay leaf
pepper
oregano
basil

Cut up one to two small green onions (or one large, sweet white onion) and sauté over medium-high heat in a pot drizzled with one tablespoon of olive oil. Sauté for about 10 minutes until the onions turn clear. To make sure the onions are done — try a little piece, it should be sweet.

Finely mince one to two cloves of garlic (depending on how garlicky you like your sauce). Add to the onions and sauté for about two minutes.

Add two small cans of chopped tomatoes (or one large can). Make sure you buy good-quality tomatoes, such as the San Marzano brand.

Stir and add:

1/2 to one bouillion cube, depending on cube size (beef is best but vegetable or chicken works just as well)
1 bay leaf
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1 teaspoon sugar (you may not need as much sugar if your onions and tomatoes are very sweet)
1 tsp dried oregano (you can add more or less)
1 tsp dried basil (you can add more or less)

Turn the heat down to low and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes. Stir every few minutes and remove the bay leaf when the sauce is done.

This makes a great and simple sauce for pasta! Serve the sauce with some fresh basil and parmesan cheese.

Variations:

Vodka sauce:
Add 1/2 cup cream and 1/8 cup vodka (optional) at the end. Simmer for two minutes.

Cream and herb sauce:
Add one teaspoon of herbes de Provence with the basil and oregano. At the end, add chopped basil and 1/2 cup of cream. Simmer for two minutes.

Chorizo, mushroom and red wine sauce:
Halfway through the cooking of the onions, add two finely chopped chorizo sausages and one cup of finely chopped mushrooms. Add in a few drops of hot sauce or chilli peppers and 1/4 cup of dry red wine when adding the other spices.