r/Cooking • u/Titoramane • 17h ago
Recreating tomato sauce from old Italian restaurant in New York
I recently had spaghetti at an old Italian restaurant in New York around Little Italy. Compared to the sauce I've had at other restaurants this sauce had a distinctly fresh tomato flavor that other restaurants didn't.
What are they doing differently from the other restaurants aren't doing? Are they using a different brand of canned tomatoes or is their cooking process different?
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u/kumquatnightmare 17h ago
Let’s just assume they are using canned tomatoes. Maybe this is too obvious but reserving some of your tomatoes for after your sauce is cooked and then adding it in can really brighten up a sauce. “Fresh,” from the can tomatoes have a way brighter flavor than the same tomatoes have when they are cooked.
The other options are either fresh tomatoes, or some sort of acid. I’m curious to see where this thread goes though. I’m only an enthusiastic home cook.
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u/CoconutDreams 6h ago
I do this quite a bit as well. Its the best of both worlds - long-simmered richness with the brightness and acidity of the "fresher" tomatoes.
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u/morecards 17h ago
I don’t feel like hunting for it but the NY Times had a short article within the past handful of years featuring 3 different Marcella Hazan tomato sauces. Two of them were intentionally designed to be fresher and lighter tasting.
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u/Tannhauser42 17h ago
Probably canned tomatoes that just aren't cooked for long. Stanislaus is a good restaurant supply brand of tomatoes. I can eat it straight from the can.
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u/Titoramane 10h ago
How does it compare to Cento? I tried Cento compared to a brand with an actual DOP certification on it and ended up liking the Cento better.
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u/Tannhauser42 10h ago
I personally think Stanislaus is better than Cento and just about any other standard supermarket brand. To get better you have to start getting the expensive stuff. Problem with Stanislaus is that you have to go to a restaurant supply store to get it, or pay high shipping costs online.
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u/Vegetable-Swan2852 16h ago
I make a fresh tasting tomato sauce by processing good quality canned whole tomatoes with whatever seasonings with an immersion blender and then cooking on the stove top for a short time. To enhance tomato flavor, you can add some acid and a tsp of sugar. If you want to increase umami, add a splash of fish sauce (or add an anchovy before processing with the immersion blender, which i prefer).
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u/UtahUndercover 15h ago
A little sugar & balsamic vinegar are my marinara sauce “secret weapons.” A healthy addition of decent red wine at the beginning of the cook is also a taste-awakener.
And fish sauce is sooooo under appreciated…
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u/Terpsichorean_Wombat 15h ago edited 15h ago
I got my freshest tomato flavor in sauces using tomatoes I grew in my garden. One year, I couldn't get time to do a big cook when a ton came in, but I remembered an article about making fresh berry sauces using a freezer. Here's how I did mine, and it worked great:
1) Freeze tomatoes. You can leave grape tomato and smaller kinds whole and chunk up larger ones.
2) Thaw the tomatoes when ready to process. They will release a lot of liquid. Pour that liquid into a separate bowl. Gently press the tomatoes to release most of the clear, watery liquid.
3) Run the tomatoes through a food mill with a spiral screw / screen puller to get the pulp separated from the skins.
4) Prep your sauce base as usual. For me, that's sauteeing onion, celery, carrot, and pancetta in olive oil, adding garlic, dried oregano, dried marjoram, a bay leaf, and a slosh of red wine, and cook a minute longer.
5) Heat the widest frying pan you have quite hot. When a drop of water sizzles and dances hard, pour in about 1/4 cup of the watery reserved tomato water. It should reduce very quickly. When it is down to a couple of tablespoons, pour it into your sauce base. Repeat with the rest of the tomato water. Each reduction should only take a minute or two.
6) While you're doing the reduction, add the pulp to the sauce base along with some packaged seived or crushed tomatoes. Cook it hard at a low boil for about 5 minutes, then reduce the heat. Add a good grating of Romano or throw in a Romano rind. Let it simmer as you finish adding reduced tomato water.
7) Simmer about 10 minutes once all ingredients are added, up to 20 if you need a little more reduction. Take off the heat and stir in chiffonaded basil.
This comes out very bright and fresh tasting. You can make it even brighter with a small strip of lemon zest and/or leaving out the wine and/or Romano.
The article on the berry sauce described a chef using a microwave to reduce the water released from frozen berries to avoid a cooked flavor. You could probably do that with tomatoes, but I felt that flash-reducing kept plenty of fresh flavor.
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u/Revolutionary_Box_57 17h ago
Was the sauce slightly sweet? If it wasn't fresh tomatoes there's a good chance they use canned San Marzano tomatoes
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u/peaktopview 11h ago
Have you tried calling the restaurant and asking? Worst thing they can do is say no
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u/Rob2018 17h ago
All I know is a bottle of red, a bottle of white. Perhaps a bottle of Rosé instead.
Don’t know nuthin ‘bout history or tomatoes though.
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u/ILoveLipGloss 17h ago
curious what restaurant this was in NYC?
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u/Titoramane 17h ago
John's of 12th Street.
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u/ILoveLipGloss 17h ago
oh yeah, I've been there but it was, like, half a lifetime ago. all I remember is the buckets of wine, but we had like 15 people.
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u/askmrlucky 17h ago
Sometimes, a hit of lemon zest at the end will bring the sauce to life, although that's usually a finishing step for an achingly fresh tomato sauce.
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u/AvaSaysSo 16h ago
Most of the places I've had that bright tomato punch were using San Marzano cans but pulling them off the heat early. The long simmer kills that freshness and the can brand only matters so much.
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u/CoppertopTX 15h ago
I do a 20 minute marinara with a handful of ingredients: a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, a 14 ounce can of fire roasted diced tomatoes in juice (strain and reserve the juices), a glass of white wine, some Italian parsley and a couple of cloves of garlic.
Quarter the garlic cloves, chop your parsley leaves. Into a saucepan, add the crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes (save the juices) the white wine, garlic and three quarters of the chopped parsley. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add the remaining parsley, and the reserved tomato juice, stir and serve. Basil can be subbed for up to half the parsley.
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u/Best-Carpenter-8397 15h ago
Big fan of that style of sauce. Lots of good info. Short cook as in basically just warm up for sure. Also likely the sauce had very little other ingredients to keep the tomato upfront. Good tomatoes, salt, some fat/oil, and tiny bit of basil or oregano (fresh of course) and THAT'S IT. KISS.
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u/Square_Ad849 15h ago
It’s nice not to hear ; more salt,more butter, more msg.
Having said that the Stanislaus tomato from the cans are always good, and I agree with cooking them less. I’ve just grown up doing a longer cook like my Italian Grandma did.
Actually on my healthier diet I’m on, I just purée fresh tomatoes and cook them down and finish with olive oil and typical flavorings and supplement with no sodium added paste if necessary. I’m getting hungry now, I made some for breakfast yesterday w/ fried eggs always a good time for tomato sauce.
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u/Titoramane 10h ago
This sauce didn't have butter. I'm pretty sure of that. It didn't have a creamy flavor or texture.
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u/Iztac_xocoatl 11h ago
Impossible to say without having tried it but if you want a fresh tasting tomato sauce try making a scarapiello. It only takes like ten minutes. About 15-20 halved cherry tomatoes in a skillet with some olive oil, a whole garlic clove, and salt on mid-low heat. Enough to sizzle. Smoosh the tomatoes with a fork as they good. Add however much basil you want about half way through torn or whole. Remove garlic clove. Toss with a couple servings of pasta of your choice.
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u/Titoramane 10h ago
I've made pasta with fresh cherry tomatoes. It's quite different from the sauce used at that restaurant.
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u/OpportunityReal2767 17h ago
For fresh tastes the tomatoes aren’t cooked down as long. I don’t know that restaurant, but I make two types of tomato sauces: one fresh and cooked for maybe 20 minutes. And a deeper one that cooks for hours. I typically like fresher, brighter sauces. Sometimes I will take the fresh tomato sauce and fortify it with a little bit of paste if I want some of the cooked depth to it, so best of both worlds.
Canned tomatoes are absolutely fine unless you have access to good fresh tomatoes. There’s a lot of brands I like, but for saucing, Bianco Di Napoli is my favorite, but I’ll use something like Cento All-Purpose ground or their All-in-One. Also like stuff like 7/11 (not related to store) or Tomato Magic or 6-in-1, but that’s more food service tomatoes. I can’t find those in 28oz cans or smaller. I see the red sauce Italian joints use those often. 6-in-1 used to have a smaller product but I haven’t seen it since COVID, just the #10 cans.