Red Wine Reduction Tomato Sauce |
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- 6 tomatoes, medium sized
- 12oz. italian sausage
- 1 onion, medium sized
- 4oz. mushrooms, sliced
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 3c red wine
- 12oz. tomato paste
- 4oz. fresh basil
- 4T fresh garlic, minced
- 3tsp. crushed red pepper
- 1T sugar
- Salt & Pepper TT
- 2T glacé poulet : If you have this, you score major points
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- You're going to make tomato concasse. Flame a few quarts of water and bring to a boil. Take the tomatoes and remove the cores. Blanch them in the boiling water. Remove them after just a few minutes. Shock them in cold water to cool the surface. Remove the skins. Slice in half cross-wise, between the top and bottom. Using your fingers, remove the seeds from each cavity. No really, get all the seeds out. First seed I find and you fail. Medium dice the tomatoes and set aside.
- Sauté the sausage in a large pan. Depending on what kind of sausage you are using, you can adjust the amount of olive oil you use. If you're using a spiced chicken sausage use a bit more oil - less if you are going with the standard pork links.
- Add the aromatics, remaining vegetables (not tomatoes) and seasonings. Sauté everything until you get a nice carmelization - Brown and sweet, not burned and bitter.
- Add the tomatoes. Bring the pan back up to high heat. There's going to be a fair amount of water from the tomatoes. Reduce that out.
- Add the wine and reduce about 3/4. Use your own judgement here. You don't want to take this to au sec. You want it reduced to increase the flavor, but not so much that it won't dilute the paste you are going to be adding.
- Add the paste and mix thoroughly. Add the glacé poulet if you have it. This is the time you want to check the consistency. You can add some water/wine/cream to get it to your liking.
- Season to taste. Try it first without adding any salt. Then add a tsp at a time, tasting between moves. It will taste really raw initially, and then the salt will open your taste buds and it will taste more like tomato sauce. If you need to, add some garlic and onion powder.
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A few notes:
This is quick tomato sauce. Normally, I would use chicken stock and pork bones. I get around this by using the pork sausage and the glacé poulet. The rendered fat from the meat is used to carmelize the ingredients. The glacé is really just reduced stock. The wine is the vinegar and is balanced out by the fat and the sweet (sugar, basil, etc).
Sugar and salt affect the color of the ingredients. Add sugar to red/orange colored vegetables; salt to green. Each will enhance the color and make the ingredients more vibrant. Try this: next time you blanch some green vegetables - asparagus, broccoli, etc. Add salt to the water before you bring it up to a boil. How much? Enough to make it salty like soup. Those vegetables will be dripping with color and will look great when you plate them.
Like all the recipes posted here, by me, this is a guideline. I don't do specifics in an effort to invite individuality. Take this as a benchmark, and adjust things to your liking. If you have a suggestion, drop a line. Hopefully, there something new in here for you
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