How to make sauce.

gistfile1.txt

1. Get good tomatoes- the usual plastic ones won't do. I usually get heirlooms,
   if I can. Look for ones that are kinda squishy, but not actually squished. If
   they're too hard, they were probably picked too early and won't be sweet
   enough.
2. Prep tomatoes.
    1. Place each tomato on cutting board. Press down on tomato, and roll it
       around cutting board. You're trying to damage the internal walls to get
       them to release juice, without rupturing the skin (same thing you'd do
       to an orange when making fresh OJ). Romas can take a lot of squeezing,
       heirlooms usually can't.
    2. Cut bottom off tomato, squeeze jelly-like substance out into bowl. Use
       your fingers to get out as much as possible.
    3. Slice rest of tomato as thin as you have patience for.
3. Now you have a bowl of tomato guts/liquid, and a pile of sliced tomatoes. Put
   tomatoes into oven-safe saucepot (cast iron or something) and salt them.
   Work salt into tomatoes with your hands. This is the fun part; you're trying
   to draw more liquid out of the tomatoes. After the salt is worked in, let it
   sit for a few minutes to get as much liquid out as possible.
4. Pick up giant ball of salted tomatoes, squeeze as much liquid out of it as
   will come (into the bowl mentioned above).
5. Add olive oil to tomatoes, enough to thinly coat everything (to keep it from
   burning).
6. Put saucepot in oven at 450 degrees and leave it in for a while; the exact
   time depends on how much liquid you got out of the tomatoes, but you're
   waiting for the edges of the tomatoes to start to darken (Maillard
   reaction). It usually takes 45-60 minutes, but keep an eye on it.
7. At this point, prep anything else that's going into the sauce. At least
   garlic and onion, maybe beef, maybe mirepoix/soffritto. Brown it all, just
   before the tomatoes are done. Set it aside for the moment.
8. (Carefully) take the extremely hot pot of tomatoes out of the oven, put it
   on the stovetop on medium. Immediately start deglazing the pot with the
   tomato juice, all of those stuck-on bits are gold. If you run out of tomato
   juice, switch to wine.
9. Once deglazing is done, dump in the rest of your prepped stuff from #8.
   Stir it all up. Make sure there's enough liquid to cover (it's okay to start
   using water at this point, you should have the flavor you need). At this
   stage, you will almost certainly forget that the pot came out of the oven,
   and you will hold the edge of it to stir. It will hurt. Hold your burned
   hand under cold water while stirring.
10. Add any herbs you might want, fresh oregano is great, maybe a bay leaf.
11. Simmer for as long as you have patience for, at least 45 minutes
    (especially if you used mirepoix or beef, they need a lot of time to
    integrate or you'll get that gross thing where the solids stay on top of
    the pasta and the juice runs out). Keep adding enough water to simmer
    effectively, but try not to drown it.
12. After you run out of patience, turn the heat up a bit, dump in your
    (preferably fresh) pasta, and (if you're low on liquid) add enough liquid
    to cover the pasta. Yes, into the sauce. Cook the pasta until the texture
    is right, which means aldente-ish.
13. Take off heat. Eat.