You can’t make chicken salad out of beaks and feathers, so let’s get started with some good freshly shucked vine ripe hoe made (see what I did there) tomatoes.
I’ll let the pictures do the talking for the next part, let’s get to shuckin’
This is day one of a three day sauce, so put some kosher salt on the tomatoes and put them in the refrigerator for now.
To be continued…
Day Two…
Squeeze and pulp the tomatoes by hand, ensures good texture. Heat the root stuff in olive oil till the onions are opaque and the small pieces of shalotts are
brownish. Combine all the stuff. Bring to a boil, simmer 1 hour, then let it rest or simulate, as granny fisher said, until tomorrow on the stovetop, not refrigerated. The fridge impedes the meld.
To be continued…
That’s gonna be freaking awesome. Gotta show my son this as he loves to cook.
I have some basil and Thyme plants. Do you prefer the whole basil leaves vs chopped?? Probably doesn’t matter during long cook…
Is that oregano perhaps?? Never grew any of that…
Thanks
NN
There is some dried oregano under the crushed pepper, I didn’t have any fresh.
Most of the basil leaves will pretty much break down over the cooking time, the thyme stem will come out when the leaves have all cooked away form it.
Tomorrow I’ll cook it for 6 or 8 hours on very low heat and during that time I’ll tweak it with more stuff, mostly dried basil, oregano, thyme, salt (lots of salt) black pepper, and maybe onion powder, we’ll see. No two batches ever come out the same as I just use that basic recipe like above and mess with it until It’s cooked down to the thickness and taste you desire.
No sugar, if you like a sweeter red sauce roast the veggies first and use honey. I don’t really like sugar in my cornbread , grits, or cole slaw either,. , so theres that.
This has now been simmering on low low low heat for about 8 hours.
I like it cooked down to the consistency of store bought ragu, that’s the best I can explain it.
If you take a slotted spoon and scoop some up, very little liquid should drip out. That’s how you know.
So this is Granny Fishers Red Sauce Base, not just spaghetti sauce. You can use it for spaghetti sauce sure, just add your protein of choice. But it’s also good to slow cook chicken in (see tonight’s What I Just Ate thread).
Also good for manicotti, pizza sauce (add some tomatoe paste to the sauce for pizza), Spanish rice, meatloaf, paella, sloppy joes, ,you get the idea.
My favorite just might be one of those small Estil wild pork loins in the crock pot, covered in red sauce, and cooked until it’s able to be pulled and shredded with a fork.
bon appetit
.
and as always
God Bless The Tennessee Volunteers and Josh Heupel
EF
That looks fantastic from start to finish, you had Julie at manicotti
I’m with you on no extra sweetness, then you hooked me right in the corner of the mouth with the slow trolled pork loin
She also requests that after those 8hrs of simmering today, maybe you could take a mason jar worth of the air in your house and save it for her
Oh baby! What a fantastic use of a familiar looking container!
