Anybody have a good spaghetti sauce recipe?

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Thanks in advance, dildos.

[Goober McTuber]

My wife has a real simple one that I love. I’m doing this from memory.

3 15.5 oz cans of tomato sauce
1 small can tomato paste (8 oz?)
½ cup very finely diced onion
4 of 5 cloves of garlic chopped/crushed
1 tsp sugar
2 paste cans full of water
½ cup freshly-grated parmesan
oregano
basil

Start bringing the sauce, paste and water slowly up to heat. In the meantime, start sautéing the onion in a little olive oil. After a few minutes add the garlic. When the garlic just barely starts turning light brown, dump the garlic and onions into the sauce.

Keep stirring the sauce occasionally as it heats up; you don’t want to burn the stuff on the bottom. We use a spatula for this to keep lifting the stuff off of the bottom of the pan (a white rubber spatula will turn permanently red from the sauce, so it will be easy to always identify the “spaghetti spatula”).

You don’t want boil the sauce, you just want to get it almost to a simmer. Add the parmesan, and almost-simmer it for 5-6 hours (you don’t want it bubbling, but you will see the steam rising off of it). During the last three hours you can add your meat.

When my wife makes this, she doubles the batch so there’s sauce and meat left over to freeze. We make a batch of meatballs (1 lb of ground chuck worth) and probably 8 Italian sausage links. The meatballs and the links both get browned in olive oil before being added to the pot.

Along the way you can season with salt and pepper to taste. It’s simple, and it tastes great. Some people prefer their sauce a bit on the chunky side. I suppose you could replace some of the sauce with chopped tomatoes, but I happen to like it smooth. And after about the first hour, the whole house smells great.

Additionally, you need to put one stick of softened butter in a bowl. Add a couple/few cloves of crushed garlic, ¾ cup of freshly-grated parmesan, and about a quarter of a cup of chopped parsley. Mix it up good, cover it and let it stand at room temperature till dinner is ready. Open it up from time to time and stir it.

Get a loaf of good quality French bread, sourdough is really good, and I also like using Panera’s Asiago cheese sourdough demi loaf. Slice bread ¾ to an inch thick, spread lightly with garlic butter and place under broiler. Keep a real close eye on it, because it’s very easy to burn. When top starts to turn a little brown, it’s ready. And it’s money.

Don’t go overboard with the garlic in the butter, and don’t try to put too much garlic butter on or it tends to taste a tad bitter. Experiment a bit, and you’ll get it to suit your own taste. I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it taste like semen, faggot.

[indyfrisco]

Here's my go-to red sauce. I use it for pasta and pizza sauce. It's a much thicker sauce (lotsa paste), but I'm not much of a "runny sauce" kinda guy. My wife eats pasta about 4 nights a week and this is what I always use to make it. I just make a big batch and use it for about a week.

1 - 30 oz. can tomato sauce
2 - 12 oz. can tomato paste
8 cloves garlic finely chopped (don't use that minced in the jar shit)
1 T Italian Seasoning
2 tsp fresh cracked pepper
3 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup grated parmesean (green can shit works)
1/2 cup shredded parmesean (bagged shit works, save the freshly grated for the pasta)
Olive Oil

Heat pan on stove to medium high heat. Coat about 1/2 pan with EVOO. Spread around and drop in garlic. Let garlic cook to flavor the oil for a couple minutes, but do not let it burn. Drop in the tomato sauce, paste, Italian seasoning, pepper, salt. Stir until you get a decent consistency and then drop in the cheeses and mix well. Turn the heat to med-low and let sauce simmer. Stir occassionally to keep the sauce from splattering all over.

Now, when I make this sauce I always do just the plain sauce as I put above. The reason is my wife doesn't like meat, onions, mushrooms or peppers. If I was making it for myself, here's what I would do:

Same ingredients above plus...
1 medium onion chopped
1 bell pepper chopped
10 button mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 T butter

Put butter and olive oil in pan once heated. Drop in onion and red pepper flakes. S&P onions. Let onions cook about 5 min on med-high heat. Drop in peppers and garlic. Let cook ~ 3more minutes. Follow same process as above from this point on starting with adding the sauce, paste and spices.

Now, for the pasta. Fuck spaghetti. Get some penne or something else that will "hold" the sauce. I always use whole wheat penne pasta.

Cook the pasta about halfway. That is, if the box says cook for 8 minutes, cook it for 4 minutes. My everyday plates are oven safe so I use the pasta bowls to bake the pasta in. If you don't have this, go ahead and make this in a casserole dish. I just like to bake the individual servings in their own bowls. The cheese crusts over the top. Looks great and tastes great.

Anyhow...I use a separate bowl to mix the sauce and pasta. Take the portioned pasta and put in a bowl. Drop enough sauce in there to cover the pasta and mix well with spoon to cover all the pasta. Drop the pasta and sauce into the pasta bowl and spread out. Cover with Motzerella. I use the feather shredded bagged stuff. Do not use the finely shredded. If you want to use freshly grated, so be it. This is a quicky meal for me so I do not. Also, when I do my own, I'll drop whatever meat in I want that night. Might be shrimp, grilled chicken or sausage. Anyhow, cover the pasta with the motz. Here's where I break out the parm-reg. I grate a healthy portion of parm-reg over the top.

Now, bake in a 400* oven until the outsides of the bowl really start to brown up on the cheese. For my oven, it takes about 20-25 minutes. Since I like a browned crusted cheese on top, at this point, I turn the broiler on low. From this point on, keep an eye on it. It takes about 3-5 minutes to get perfectly crusted. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes. You try to eat now and you are burning the fuck out of your mouth.

Bingo. That's it. Looks like a lot of work, but I make this all the time and it is pretty quick as far as prep time. Like I said, I make a big batch of the sauce and use it over and over.

[Goober McTuber]

I’m surprised you don’t put a dash of sugar in there, especially with that much paste. I would think your sauce would taste a tad acidic. Try separating out a small amount of your sauce and just sprinkle on a pinch of sugar, mix it up and taste it. My Sicilian father-in-law gave me that tip, BTW.

[trev]

Here's a whole thread on marinara sauce.

http://www.theoneboard.com/board/viewto ... f=17&t=424" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[indyfrisco]

Goobs,

I'll give that a try sometime. It does not taste "acidic" to me, but maybe that's because I am used to it.

[Louis Cyphre]

I used to make this every Super Bowl Sunday. It's from the Soprano's Cookbook. The meatballs are optional and I like to use chopped roma tomatoes instead of peeled.:

For the Sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound meaty pork neck bones or spareribs
1 pound veal stew meat or 2 veal shoulder chops
1 pound Italian-style plain or fennel pork sausages
4 garlic cloves
1\4 cup tomato paste
Three 28- to 35-ounce cans Italian peeled tomatoes
2 cups water
Salt and freshly ground pepper
6 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces

For the Meatballs
1 pound ground beef or a combination of beef and pork
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs, preferably homemade
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon very finely minced garlic
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil


To make the sauce, heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Pat the pork dry and put the pieces in the pot. Cook, turning occasionally, for about 15 minutes, or until nicely browned on all sides. Transfer the pork to a plate. Brown the veal in the same way and add it to the plate.

Place the sausages in the pot and brown on all sides. Set the sausages aside with the pork.

Drain off most of the fat from the pot. Add the garlic and cook for about two minutes or until golden. Remove and discard the garlic. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.

With a food mill, puree the tomatoes, with their juice, into the pot. Or, for a chunkier sauce, just chop up the tomatoes and add them. Add the water and salt and pepper to taste. Add the pork, veal, and sausages and basil and bring the sauce to a simmer. Partially cover the pot and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 2 hours. If the sauce becomes too thick, add a little more water.

Meanwhile, make the meatballs:

Combine all the ingredients except the oil in a large bowl. Mix together thoroughly. Rinse your hands with cool water and lightly shape the mixture into 2-inch balls. (Note: If you are making meatballs for lasagne or baked ziti, shape the meat into tiny balls the size of a small grape.)
Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet. Add the meatballs and brown them well on all sides. (They will finish cooking later.) Transfer the meatballs to a plate.
After two hours, add the meatballs and cook for 30 minutes or until the sauce is thick and the meats very tender.
To serve, remove the meats from the sauce and set aside. Toss the cooked pasta with the sauce. Sprinkle with cheese. Serve the meats as a second course, or reserve them for another day.

[Goober McTuber]

Just curious, Louis, do they call that Italian Gravy? I’ve seen similar recipes that were named as such.

[indyfrisco]

I have the Sopranos Cookbook too. Does not call it gravy. It calls it Meat Sauce I believe.

[Goober McTuber]

Actually, I looked it up on Amazon.com and they call it Sunday Gravy.

[indyfrisco]

Hmm...guess you were right. I haven't broken out the book in a few years. I've not actually used any recipes in the book. got it as an xmas gift and just filed it with all my other cookbooks in the pantry I never use.

[Louis Cyphre]

Yep, it's called Uncle Junior's Sunday Gravy. I forgot to mention that I hardly use any water when making it. The sauce is thin enough without adding water.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Thanks for the recipes. I prepared the dinner the following evening of the day that I posted this thread, so I didn't get to use any of these recipes. What I did make was pretty basic, and similar to Goober's except I used romano instead of parmesan.

My g/f asked me why I did not put in any sugar and I was like :?

It seemed fine without, but I'll try it next time to compare the difference.

[Goober McTuber]

Were you able to get the garlic bread to taste like semen?

Go easy with the sugar, a little bit at a time. You don’t want a noticeably sweet sauce, just enough to cut any acidity.

Thanks for the recipes. I prepared the dinner the following evening of the day that I posted this thread, so I didn't get to use any of these recipes.

Sheesh, I posted mine less than an hour after you started the thread. :?

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Ya, I wound up leaving work earlier than expected and didn't get a chance to check back.

[Goober McTuber]

Fair enough. Just don't call me a dildo again and things will go a lot smoother for you.

[indyfrisco]

I added about 2 T sugar to my sauce recipe above for the sauce I made last night. Unfortunately, I've cut pasta from my diet for awhile and did not get to taste it to check the difference in taste. I made it for our dinner guests. All really enjoyed the pasta. I will probably try some over it on a chicken parmesean in the coming days.