Wednesday 28 October 2009

Roast tomato sauce

A recent trip to Costco yielded a 6kg box of lovely ripe tomatoes. Paul and I decided to have a cook-off - split the box in half and each produce a tomato sauce to our own taste and then compare. But this is my blog so you only get to see my efforts...

I decided to concentrate the tomato flavour by roasting them. I peeled, quartered and seeded the tomatoes, then pushed the seeds through a sieve to get as many of the juices into the sauce as possible. I packed them in a single layer in a roasting tin, sprinkled a little olive oil over them and studded the tomatoes with whole peeled garlic cloves and a couple of sliced green chillies. A small seasoning of salt and into a slow oven for 2 hours.

The tomatoes cooked down almost to a puree. I split the cooked sauce into 3 portions, froze 2 and used one the following night for dinner.

We had a lot of rare roast beef left over from a previous meal. I'd been thinking about a week of beef sandwiches for lunch, but then I decided it had a better fate. Apparently it used to be traditional to mince the leftover Sunday roast and produce it for Monday dinner - as cottage pie or rissoles or something.

I chopped the beef (and another green chilli, just in case you were concerned by the green flecks in my mince) and put it through the mincer.

I fried a chopped onion and some sliced garlic in some olive oil, added a heap of dried herbs (rosemary, celery seed, oregano, thyme and marjoram) and a sliced yellow pepper. When the pepper was slightly softened I added the mince, then a portion of the roasted tomato sauce.

After a nice slow simmer I served it on wholemeal spaghetti with grated parmesan.

It was very tasty! The ground beef produced a much finer-textured sauce than raw mince does. There was a lot of liquid (normally my meat sauce can support a spoon) but it was very full-flavoured and much richer than I would have expected.

18 comments:

HH said...

Sounds fantastic FC!I like the idea of roasting the tomoatoes.

Would the sauce hold up on its own say in a nepolotana style dish?

Dare I ask who won the cook off?

Arlene Delloro said...

An interesting sauce. I love the idea of roasting the tomatoes. Plum tomatoes have very little taste eaten out of hand; roasting produces an incredible flavor. I was going to ask who won, too.

NKP said...

I am a big fan of roasting the tomatoes for the sauce. Looks great!
And I want that grinder!!

kat said...

Your sauce looks good but I too want to know who won the cook-off

Alicia Foodycat said...

Thanks all - I think sauce was the winner on the day ;)

HH - yes, it would be lovely on it's own with a little extra seasoning.

Natashya - we love the mincer!

George Gaston said...

I bet roasting the tomatoes gave them a wonderful dimension and add a unique taste to your sauce. Love the idea of a little kitchen competition, too! That way you were able to 'push your creative buttons' and come up with the very different sauces.

Marie said...

Looks fabulously hearty. I'm sheepish to admit I've only made canned tomato sauces!

Taste of Beirut said...

Sounds heavenly! I am sure the tomatoes tasted so good after all that roasting with garlic and peppers to boot! Yumm..

Alicia Foodycat said...

George - yes, the roasting really did concentrate the flavour!

Ben - blogger's rights!

Marie - it's not often that I do it from scratch.

ToB - thanks for visiting my blog!

Jude said...

And Paul's was rubbish?

Dharm said...

Oh Yum!! Roasted Tomato Sauce - a must try now for me... So this is what you used the roast beef for instead of making my Kheema... Good Choice! It looks superb!

Alicia Foodycat said...

Jude - I wouldn't say rubbish but not as good as mine!

Dharm - yup. But next time it'll be the keema for sure.

Deb in Hawaii said...

The sauce sounds delicious with the roasted tomatoes!

halfpint harpy said...

Oh how *gorgeous!* Must try it!

FC the roasted tomatoes make a lovely soup, too—so nice with a dollop of really fresh goats curd...

Alicia Foodycat said...

Deb - it was!

Halfpint - yes, I have been thinking that a portion of the sauce may become soup.

Ailbhe said...

Oo I know I have a old mincer in some storage box somewhere, must dig it out - I remember we had one at home when a kid and we always minced leftover meats for a cottage pie!

Sam said...

I love the idea of roasting the tomatoes, it must really intensify the flavout. I'm sure it tastes fantastic!

Alicia Foodycat said...

Ailbhe - I'm keen to do a roast just so I can have the leftovers for cottage pie!

Sam - it's really good. And so handy to have in the freezer!

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