Summer Tomato Essence

Cut ripe juicy tomatoes in quarters. Put in large, non reactive sauce pan {enameled cast iron or stainless steel} Bring to a boil and reduce heat and let simmer until the tomatoes completely fall apart. Put tomatoes thru a food mill to remove skin and seeds. Be sure to work the mill well until the skins are fairly dry.

You can freeze the essence and use it as in ingredient in soups or stews. You can also make some into sauce using the following outline. You can vary the herbs, but if you want to flavor the sauce with basil, do it when you have thawed the sauce and are ready to serve it. Rosemary, marjoram or thyme all are nice for the herb, or use a mix. We freeze only the essence and make the sauce when thawing out so we can tailor the sauce for its final use.

Summer Tomato Sauce

To make the summer tomato essence into a tomato sauce, saute in olive oil over high heat red chili flakes {Aleppo pepper is my favorite} in olive oil for a second and add chopped garlic and oregano and cook until just aromatic. Don’t let the garlic burn. Add tomato sauce and cook until it is almost as thick as you want for your final sauce. The sauce will reduce further when you reheat it from the freezer. Season with salt & pepper, leaving it under salted so you can add salty ingredients like capers or anchovies wen you have thawed out the sauce.

For 1 quart of the essence, I use
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp Aleppo
1 Tbsp Garlic
1 Tbsp chopped fresh Oregano
1/2 to 1 tsp coarse black pepper
pinch of salt

Oniony Tomato Wine Sauce.

For a nice variation, sautee 2 cups onions cut into half moon rings in olive oil until completely soft a alightly sweet. Don’t allow it to burn. Add 1 to 2 cups of red or white wine, or one cup dry vermouth. Reduce it and allow to thicked until the sauce is not too runny. Then complete the sauce as above, adding in 1/4 cup parsley at the end. Makes a great tomato sauce for fish and shellfish.

Dean