Roasted Tomatoe Sauce

This is a basic tomatoe sauce that I have grown quite fond of in Lasagnas. The only drawback is that it takes a long time to actually make the sauce. This means that if I have limited time, I can't make a Lasagna. Which is why I am making it beforehand. I can start thawing the sauce the day before or morning of and I will have sauce that is ready to go.

Before I began, I weighed all the vegetable ingredients and recorded it. This was to create a baseline of how much I start out with, compared with what I will get out. The number I got allows me to know the total weight of the ingredients that I will need to use to make a given volume of sauce for future reference. I prefer using weights to saying "use a medium onion", its more accurate and leads to repeatable results.

Tomatoe - 4408 grams (9 lbs 11 oz)
Onion - 271 grams (9.6 oz)
Red Pepper - 167 grams (5.8 oz)
Garlic - 50 grams (1.7 oz)

This is equivalent to 12 large tomatoes, 1 Onion, 1 Red Pepper and 1 bulb of Garlic. I ended up with a sauce that I had to thicken, so I would recommend reducing the weight of the tomatoes by choosing medium sized tomatoes instead.

This was the first time I used Beefsteak tomatoes and I ended up with way more sauce than I was expecting. So much in fact that I would actually double the weight of the Onion, Red Pepper and Garlic or half the Tomatoes. I must mention that this is the first time I have weighed the ingredients when I make this sauce. So I didn't see the excessive volume coming until the final measurement.

The first step is to wash off waxes, pesticides and anything else that may have made its way onto the tomatoes.











In the name of science I measure you! Depending on how thorough you want to be you can either use 12 medium sized tomatoes (I used large ones to make this recipe, much to my dismay). A single medium Red Pepper, a single medium Red Onion and a single bulb of Garlic (note: I mean bulb not clove).













Cut the tomatoes in half and arrange with the insides facing up onto a pair of flat sheets. I tried this once in a cake pan and it still turned out. The moral of this story is, the heat is coming from a broiler which is heat coming from one direction only; up. So use whatever is convenient. Brush the insides of the tomatoes with Olive Oil and then sprinkle with Kosher Salt.

If I had to guess at how much Olive Oil I used, I might say 30 mL (1/8 cup or 2 tbls). Kosher salt has big flakes, which make it ideal to stick to a surface when used for seasoning. In this case it does double duty and helps pull moisture out of the tomatoe. I also enjoy the taste of Kosher salt compared to regular table salt.








 Place the rack in your oven as high as it goes, you want the tomatoes to be directly under the broiler. The goal is to char the surfaces.










I turned the broiler on Hi (some oven models only have one setting for the broiler, others, like mine have two settings. Still others have the ability to set a temperature) and left the oven door slightly ajar (some oven models allow you to properly broil with the door closed, mine requires it to be open). I left the tomatoes alone for half of an hour, at which point I checked to make sure they were cooking evenly and rearranged as was nessecary (either by turning the trays by 180 degrees or by moving tomatoes. I put it back into the oven for another 15 minutes to let them finish cooking.


Using a pair of tongs, flip the tomatoes over. Then repeat the brushing of oil and sprinkling of salt. You will notice a brownish liquid in the pans, don't spill this or remove it. There is a lot of flavour stored in this and it will increase as the cooking goes on.

Just like with the other side, check after a half hour, turning trays or moving tomatoes to make the tomatoes char more evenly. Then put back in for another 15 minutes to cook the rest of the way. I was distracted by something shiny and the tomatoes in this photograph charred a bit too much, but not so much that it would ruin the sauce.






While the tomatoes were roasting, I was preheating a heavy iron skillet (mine is cast iron, so it doesn't get much heavier) on high heat. I sliced up a Red Pepper and gave it a thin coating of Olive oil, then I proceeded to sear them in the skillet. I then repeated the same for the Red Onion and then again for the bulb of Garlic. I recommend constantly moving the slices around so that they won't burn. However if you have to go off and do something else or like me get distracted by shiny things, as long as you can hear a sizzle coming from the pan, your food is safe. The sizzle is water being drawn out and boiled away, this limits the temperature to 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) which won't allow it to burn. However when the sizzle stops it will burn. I let each vegetable sizzle while I sliced the next one to go into the pan. I periodically flipped the slices with a pair of tongs.

Toss everything into a blender, if its too much to fit into the jar then put only what will fit into it. I pureed all of the vegetables into a sauce. I also made sure to add the liquid that was pooling in the trays to the blender. Once the sauce is blended, I poured the sauce back into the trays and let it sit for a few minutes before using a flat edged wooden spatula to scrape up whatever residue were left behind on the trays. If the sauce is thick enough you can either use it or store it.

However, if the sauce is too watery, you can reduce it on the stove by setting it to a simmer and slowly reducing it down to the consistency you want.

Total initial ingredients - 4896 grams (10 lbs 12 oz)
Sauce (Prereduction) - 2562 grams (5 lbs 10 oz)
Sauce (Postreduction) - 2188 grams (4 lbs 13 oz)
2 Liters final product

 Here is the sauce in the Joy of Cooking recipe format.

Roasted Tomatoe Sauce
1 liter


Cut in half:
12 medium tomatoes
Brush the inside with:
2 tablespoons olive oil
Spinkle with: 
Salt
Place the tomatoes under the broiler. Turn with tongs as the skin chars, repeating the brushing with oil and sprinkling with salt. When charred all over, remove and let cool.
In a heavy skillet sear:
1 medium red pepper (sliced into strips)
1 medium red onion (sliced into eights)
1 bulb of garlic
Add the tomatoes and then puree in a food processor or blender.


The total cost is $15.55, which works out to $0.97 per serving.