Marcella Hazans Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

By susanwadle

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes, prepared as described below, or 2 cups canned imported Italian tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half
• Salt to taste
• fresh, ripe plum tomatoes (or other varieties, if they are equally ripe and truly fruity, not watery)

Details

Servings 6
Adapted from food52.com

Preparation

Step 1

Put either the prepared fresh tomatoes or the canned in a saucepan, add the butter, onion, and salt, and cook uncovered at a very slow, but steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until it is thickened to your liking and the fat floats free from the tomato.

Stir from time to time, mashing up any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon.

The blanching method: Plunge the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute or less. Drain them and, as soon as they are cool enough to handle, skin them, and cut them into coarse pieces.

The food mill method: Wash the tomatoes in cold water, cut them lengthwise in half, and put them in a covered saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes. Set a food mill fitted with the disk with the largest holes over a bowl. Transfer the tomatoes with any of their juices to the mill and puree.

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Does anyone have any idea about how long this can be stored once made? With the butter added I wasn't sure.

I agree about freezing...I make it and freeze in 8 ounce containers and it keeps for months.

This is a fantastic recipe - and the whole point of it IS the unctuousness you get from the butter, the length of cooking and the slight bit of onion. My opinion is that substituting olive oil is fine, but that is an altogether different flavor. It is still quite good, and when I don't want such as rich sauce, that is what I do - make a normal marinara using olive oil and Marcella's technique.

See my earlier post on what I do with the onions - puree and use in a BBQ sauce - some of the Marcella sauce, the pureed onion, some garlic, a handfull of raisins, and Worcestershire.....simmer until thick and use on chicken or even burgers......

Francis Ford Coppola has published his family's no-garlic spaghetti sauce, and while it does have basil, and olive oil, it is finished with a lump of butter, which does add richness. I'll try this one. I also recommend M. Hazan's meatball recipe, from her first cookbook. Really, really good.

Last night I used the last of this sauce that I made in the summer. It was still delicious. Yesterday I also planted my tomatoes so in a few months I can make more.

I absolutely love this sauce. Be sure to seed the tomatoes to help w/acidity issues. Quality of both canned tomato and butter can make a difference too. Taste your canned tomatoes before using. I find if using canned tomatoes, whole tomatoes definitely work best and kate's unsalted butter, or most european unsalted butters add a really nice flavor.

After seeing all the praise for this recipe, I finally made it over the weekend. I will never make any other tomato sauce again - the flavor of this recipe is amazing for so few ingredients. I could have stood over the pot and eaten the whole thing with a spoon! Will definitely double the recipe next time-

I used a yellow onion that I happen to have and salted butter. I do, however, suspect that the tomatoes you use might make a difference. I used tomatoes straight from my garden that were delicious to begin with and this sauce turned out amazing.

I use whatever I have on hand..but the tomatoes are the key I think. If using canned, make sure you have a great quality roma or a San Marzano.

This is how my southern Italian family makes meatballs:

@ccincalif, nice meatball recipe. It is very similar to the one passed down by my Calabrian grandmother. The only difference is that her recipe called for ground veal (or goat) instead of chicken/turkey, more cheese, minced onion, cold water instead of milk, and for browning the meatballs in the oven on a baking sheet—less mess to clean up this way. My own addition to her recipe is to add diced pancetta which mimics the way the Albanians/Bosnians make their meatballs (Qebap or Kofte/a, which are in turn based on Turkish Qofte) which I fell in love with when I lived/worked in the former Yugoslavia—of course being Muslims, they left out the pork and used minced bits of an air-dried prosciutto-style beef ham (confusingly also) called prosciutto.

Thanks, Peter-I like the idea of browning the meatballs in the oven; have never seen that done before. Your grandmother's recipe sounds delicious! It's nice that we can save our relatives' recipes to pass down (and onto) others much easier with computers and social media than in the past. My mother gets upset when she can't remember how her mother used to make certain things because nothing was ever written down :(

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added almost 2 years ago

added almost 2 years ago

I have a question about step 1 on the recipe "Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter" from Genius Recipes. It says:

Due to force of habit, i ended up pureeing the skinned tomatoes, will that drastically affect the quality of the end product..Its simmering away right now, is there anything I shd do to bring it up to Marcellas standards..

added almost 2 years ago

I doubled the recipe and am using ripe local heirlooms.....my sauce is very watery. It's been simmering for about 45 minutes. Keep simmering to thicken it up? uncovered?

BTW---what does it mean when it says---" the fat floats free from the tomato"? Thanks for any input---my kitchen smells delish! :)

added almost 2 years ago

added over 1 year ago

I have a question about the ingredient "Salt to taste" on the recipe "Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter" from Genius Recipes. I don't want to add salt to the recipe to cut down on sodium. Can you suggest any other spice or herb that would suffice.? I have lots of tomotos from my garden to use up.

added 3 months ago

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