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Big-Batch Summer Tomato Sauce

Source of Recipe

"The America's Test Kitchen Do-It-Yourself Cookbook"


Recipe Introduction

"When I think of my summers growing up in rural Virginia, I remember all the times I would ride with my mother and siblings down hot, dusty back roads looking for the tomato-and-corn man or the peach man; their idea of setting up shop was to load up a pickup truck with their wares and wait for people to drive by. Back home, I watched my mother can tomatoes for the winter or make quarts of her summer tomato sauce. It was light, garlic- and basil-infused, made with the sweetest, largest field-grown tomatoes. Many years later, settled in Boston with small children of my own, I coerced a colleague into re-creating my mother's recipe with me. My mother gave me the rough formula, which involved only a handful of ingredients. We took a morning ride to Haymarket, Boston's historic open air market, legendary for rock-bottom prices and rough Italian vendors who would scream at you if you so much as touched their produce. We bought more than 60 pounds of tomatoes and countless bunches of basil. After a day (and evening) spent blanching, peeling, grinding, and cooking pots and pots of tomatoes until they reduced down into sauce, we had a counter full of beautiful jars of sauce flecked with basil and chopped garlic. We felt rich and proud. Not to mention how heavenly it was to open up a jar on a dreary February night and conjure up the summer day of our expedition. Since then, I have continued to make this sauce, but with fewer tomatoes so it would be more manageable, and you can also easily halve the recipe if you want a smaller batch."

List of Ingredients

â—¦ 30 pounds tomatoes
â—¦ 12 cloves garlic, peeled
â—¦ 1 cup tomato paste
â—¦ 1 cup chopped fresh basil
â—¦ Salt and pepper
â—¦ ½ cup red wine vinegar
â—¦ Sugar


Recipe

Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large pot over high heat and prepare ice bath in large bowl. Remove core from tomatoes and score small X in base. In batches, lower tomatoes into boiling water and cook just until skins loosen, 15 to 45 seconds. Using slotted spoon, transfer tomatoes to ice bath to cool, about 2 minutes. Remove tomatoes from ice bath and remove loosened tomato skins.

Process garlic in food processor until minced, about 10 seconds. Transfer to small bowl. Process peeled tomatoes in batches in now-empty food processor until almost smooth, 15 to 20 seconds. Transfer to large bowl.

Combine 3 ½ quarts tomato purée, one-quarter of minced garlic, ¼ cup tomato paste, ¼ cup basil, and 1 ½ teaspoons salt in each of 4 Dutch ovens or large pots and bring to simmer over medium heat. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce in each pot has thickened and reduced to 2 quarts, 1 ½ to 2 hours. Stir 2 tablespoons vinegar and 1 teaspoon sugar into each pot, seasoning with additional sugar to taste. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer hot tomato sauce to eight hot, sterilized quart jars, leaving ½ inch of headspace at top, and process. Processing times depend on your altitude: 20 minutes for up to 1,000 feet; 25 minutes for 1,001 to 6,000 feet, and 30 minutes for above 6,000 feet. Store in cool, dark place for up to one year. Opened jars of tomato sauce can be refrigerated for up to one week.

Makes 8 quarts