Tomato Sauce

Sketti is one of my favorite foods, yes I call it sketti as opposed to spaghetti. I have even caught myself saying at work (Olive Garden) "the sketti with meatsauce" I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I do. Homemade tomato sauce is absolutely amazing, and I love sauces. My favorite thing in school that we did, aside from breaking done meat (whole tenderloins) was learning about stocks and sauces. Sauces are so versatile. You have your 5 mother sauces, and each sauce is a sauce derived from one of the mother sauces. I wont get into all that right now, but you can look them up if you don't know about them, or are curious.

Tomato is one of those mother sauces, and I promise, once you've made homemade tomato sauce, you will never use the one from the jar again. Ratios of the ingredients may vary depending on how much you make, I tend to just eyeball things a lot when cooking, which is ok to do when cooking. Baking, on the other hand, you always, always, must measure everything out. In school, they always told us baking is science, and cooking is creative.

Onto the sauce. I began taking pictures, and then just stopped because I got carried away in making this sauce something spectacular. Making tomato sauce is actually really simple.

First you want to dice onions, celery, and carrots. You want to have equal parts celery and carrots, and a 2:1 ratio of onions to celery/carrots. Once, you have diced them, set them aside. In a sauce pan render down pork belly, if you cannot find pork belly, you can use bacon, I have done that before and it comes out excellent. Once the pork is rendered down, add in the veggies. You want to sweat the veggies, until they are soft, WITHOUT browning them, no color is needed! Once the veggies are soft, add in a white stock, I usually always use chicken. I add about 1 quart and 1/2. Add in diced tomatoes, fresh or canned. Of course it is better with fresh, but if you don't have the time to chop them all and want to avoid the mess of chopping tomatoes, canned are alright. Once you add in your tomatoes, add in tomato puree. I use half the puree to tomatoes, usually. Once that is added, add in some pork bones, yes pork bones, they produce excellent flavor!  Add in a bit of sugar, not too much, about a tablespoon.

Now, add in your sachet. A sachet, for those that don't know, are herbs wrapped in cheesecloth and tied together to produce flavor. A sachet usually consist of parsley stems, bay leaves, garlic cloves, whole peppercorns, and thyme. I used a paper towel and a parsley tie to home-make a sachet because I didn't have any cheesecloth on hand, and it held up amazingly!

Add all this together bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and skim the scum. ( removing added fat that rises to the top). I simmered mine 5 hours this time, it only needs to simmer 1 to 2 hours, but I wanted the flavors to really pop!

I usually don't season it with salt and pepper until its done simmering, because it gathers a lot of salt from the pork and pork bones. When it is done simmering, remove the sachet and pork bones. Run the sauce through a food mill, it helps get all the veggies, and lumps out to create a smooth sauce, and then run it through a china cap or a fine chinois.

I also made meatballs to go along with the sketti. I apologize for not a lot of photos, or an actual written recipe. For the meatballs, they are just your standard meatballs. Ground beef blending with an egg, Italian breadcrumbs and Italian seasonings, salt, pepper, and stuffed with mozzarella cheese.