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Tomato Sauce

Adapted from the tomato sauce of José Andrés via Vegetables Unleashed.

Every month or so I order a 6-pack of 28oz cans of Cento San Marzano Organic Tomatoes; while I have dreams of growing and canning these myself some day, these are exceptional tomatoes.

This order usually coincides with the realization that only one or two sauces from the last batch remain.

On the Sunday following receipt of this delivery, I make sauce.

Each batch creates enough sauce for around 6 pasta dinners as well as 8 pizzas.

Each serving is portioned out into a freezer-ready deli container (these are great!) - for pasta dinners, fill the 16oz container up near the bottom rim; pizzas are half that amount (for 2 pizzas).

Ingredients

• 355mL Spanish Olive Oil
• 16 Garlic Cloves
• 6 794g/28oz cans whole San Marzano tomatoes (+ 3 C reserved juices)
• Sea Salt
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• 2 teaspoons Smoked Paprika (Pimentón)

Directions

• Separate the tomatoes from the juices with a strainer; you will need to do this again after all the tomatoes are in a bowl as some juice will accumulate while they sit. I like to put them in whole as the cooking process will let you break them up with a spoon very easily.

• Heat olive oil and garlic cloves in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until the garlic starts to brown a bit.

• Turn the heat to high and, with the tomatoes drained once again for any loose juice, add them very carefully to the oil. Every time I’ve done this all at once, some oil has splashed out of the pan. The safest way to proceed is probably in at least 2 batches if not 3; just make sure all the tomatoes are in the pan as quickly as possible.

• Fry them in the oil for several minutes, then shift them a bit and repeat until this has been done between 3-5 times.

• Add a good amount of salt and pepper and then turn the heat down between medium and low, but closer to low. There is a sweet spot here than I found once and have been chasing ever since - in general, I think a bit more heat is good, but keep an eye on this as it will bubble and potentially spit oil out the higher it goes.

• After an hour of simmering, salt and pepper one more time and also drop in the 2 teaspoons of Smoked Paprika and stir, making sure to crush the tomatoes and garlic against the sides of the pan with a wooden spoon.

• Once this looks and tastes ready, take it off the heat and portion out into containers.

This will keep in the fridge for about a week, so I usually keep one pasta portion and one pizza portion in the fridge and the rest in dated portions in the freezer aside from the last remaining portion in the pan which will be used for dinner immediately.