Red Sauce

When John Tomarchio was a young professor in Boston University’s Core Curriculum program, he often stopped by my (Kate’s) office. Sometimes he needed my support as program manager (my first job out of college), and sometimes he wanted to talk about food. John was super kind and I learned from him how to be a grown up and also how to be a good human. More to the point, I learned how to make red sauce.

Although the sauce as he explained it only had five ingredients, it must have taken him twenty minutes to explain the process, because he wanted me to get it right (and also he was passionate and possibly a bit theatrical). Following his careful instructions, I’ve always gotten it right. I hope now that you will, too!

Red Sauce

My understanding of John’s method is colored by the habits I’ve formed over the years—his lesson was more than twenty years ago. So I want to honor him for the life lesson but not (mis)represent this as his exact recipe, which I know it is not. Here is the original’s grateful descendant.

1 tablespoon olive oil
5 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes*
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 pinch red pepper, optional

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add the olive oil once water sizzles when it hits the pan. Add the oil and give it thirty seconds to warm up as well, then add the whole-but-smashed cloves of garlic. In my view, what you do next is the most important step to the quality of the final sauce.

Cook the garlic slowly and gently and Do Not Scorch the Garlic! If the pan seems too hot, remove it immediately from the burner to cool off. You want the oil to barely simmer around the garlic, so that the cloves slowly turn a golden brown. This usually takes me three to five minutes.

Once the cloves are golden brown, add the tomato paste, salt, oregano, and optional dried red pepper. (John didn’t use tomato paste, but it adds a depth that we like. He also didn’t use oregano—he added fresh basil at the end. But we often find ourselves without fresh basil.) Stir for a minute, then add the tomatoes. Simmer for five or ten minutes. You want the sauce to cook down and thicken, but not become too thick. If it cooks until it becomes too thick, you can add a little pasta water. When you think it looks right, turn off the stove and taste a bit. Does it want more salt? How about some freshly ground pepper? If it’s too acidic, try adding a scant teaspoon of table sugar. (If you always use Pastene canned whole tomatoes, it will never be too acidic. Of course, home-bottled tomatoes also work beautifully.) I can’t buy Pastene now that I live in the West, and it’s terribly sad. In fact, this post made me investigate my Pastene shipping options. The only place I can find them is the manufacturer, located in Massachusetts, and I’d love to support them. But shipping is pricey. I have a twelve-pack loaded into my shopping cart and my credit card number entered—will I push the button to purchase?)

 Add to 1 pound freshly cooked, al dente spaghetti or linguini, top with freshly-grated parmigiano-reggiano, and serve. Or use this for lasagna or pizza sauce, a spaghetti squash gratin or calzone. Options abound, each of them delicious.

*John advised me to use whole peeled tomatoes with the reasoning that they use blemished tomatoes for the crushed and diced cans and the best quality ones for the cans of whole tomatoes. At some point I veered away from his advice, thinking the chopped were easier to deal with. But something has been brewing in me recently, and when making this batch, I decided definitely that in future I will avoid chopped tomatoes. They don’t break down no matter how long you cook them!

A Simple, Perfect Roast

Recently we’ve taken to having a roast on the first Sunday of each month, when we’re all extra hungry for dinner and ready for something soothing, warm, and filling. This recipe hails from our friends the Gublers when they were living in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and learned they could get brisket on sale on Saturdays. They started making a weekly roast with the meat. We’ve changed the recipe a bit and changed the preparation from oven to slow cooker, but we’ll ever be grateful to the Gublers and their neighbors for the original inspiration of slow-simmered roast with carrots and onions.

This is a very good roast. The carrots are a favorite of mine (Amelia); they get soft and succulent from the dripping meaty juices. In combination with the warm meat, it’s to die for. We love serving this with a slice of good bread to soak up the juices.

 A Perfect, Simple Roast

 

2 medium to large onions, quartered

10 long carrots, cut into thick coins or diagonals (around 1 1/2 pounds, although the amount isn’t important. You could also use baby carrots for ease, they’re just a little less attractive imo)

Chunk of butter*

2­–4 pounds rump roast or brisket, depending on your needs

Salt (around two teaspoons, but a bit more if the roast is over two pounds)

1 cup red wine*

2 tablespoons tomato paste (3 if the roast is over 3 pounds)

4 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled but left whole

pepper

Place onions into the slow cooker, followed by most of the carrots.

Heat a large sauté pan (large enough to hold the roast) on the stove over medium-high heat. Melt butter on the hot pan, then add the meat to brown for a few minutes on its side. Brown another side or two, in the same manner. Salt it generously on different sides as it cook. Then move the roast into the slow cooker, setting it on top of the carrots and onions.

Pour wine into the hot sauté pan to deglaze, stirring up any meat bits left from the roast. Then add the tomato paste and let it melt in the hot wine. Pour the liquid over the roast, toss in the garlic cloves, then cook on low for 8 hours or high for 1 1/2 and low for 5-6.

Although we usually eat this with a slice of good bread, as mentioned above, it’s also very good over egg noodles. Sometimes we slice it, as in the photos here, but other times we pull it apart with forks into large chunks.

*As for the butter, one of the best cooks I know, a tall robust, and elegant woman with black hair and bright blue eyes from Azerbaijan, taught me that red meat always tastes better cooked with butter than with oil. I don’t cook a lot of red meat, and when I do the dish doesn’t always accommodate her advice. But it does here and I wanted to pass it along.

*We know very little about alcohol, so at the liquor store we ask an employee for help, explaining we need a red wine for cooking a roast in the range of 7 or 8 dollars. Please don’t use cooking wine—it will taste terrible. We’ve wondered about making this with grape or cranberry juice—let us know if you try.

20-Minute Roasted Potatoes

Here at the Away Cafe, everybody loves roasted potatoes. Mom, dad, Sephe, Lucia, me (Amelia), everybody. Yet, up until recently, we hardly made them. I have memories of potatoes roasting slowly in the oven, the cook anxiously resetting the timer over and over as the potatoes continued to take more time to fully cook through. They usually required a minimum of 45 minutes and often took an hour or more to roast. It was hard to get the timing right, and too much effort for one side dish.

Enter, my solution: cut them super thin! These are like a cross between a potato chip and roasted potatoes, and man, are they delicious. They roast for only 10 minutes and broil for about 2, making them the perfect side dish: quick, easy, and appealing to all kinds of eaters. Next time you’re craving some fast food fries from the pre-pandemic ages, give these a shot.

Quick Roasted Potatoes

Fills one sheet pan with potatoes slices; doesn’t make very much and could easily be doubled

• 2 medium/large potatoes, any variety (I usually use russet)

• Olive oil

• Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash and slice the potatoes thinly and dump them onto a large sheet pan. Drizzle about one tablespoon olive oil and and 1/2 teaspoon or two huge pinches salt (don’t be shy with the salt here) on top, along with plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Mix it all together with your hands and spread the potatoes in an even layer over the sheet pan. Wash your hands and put the sheet pan in the oven. Roast for five minutes, flip the potatoes, and then roast for another five. Preheat your broiler while they are finishing roasting. When the five minutes is up, flip them again and broil for 1-3 minutes. The time this takes will vary wildly depending on the strength of your broiler and your desired level of crisp, so watch closely.

Once they look toasty and brown, take them out and serve with ketchup, if desired.

You could definitely go crispier if you wanted to; just watch closely!