Pure Marinara
15 kilos tomatoes, washed and peeled
8 pods garlic, finely chopped
¼ cup dry wild oregano
10 tablespoons sea salt
2 cups olive oil
This should be made at the peak of the tomato season when all kinds of heirlooms are available and everything has ripened on the vine and prices are low before autumn begins. Beefsteak, Romas, juicers, from soft pink to bright fire engine red, these are the varieties and this is the time to capture all that flavor and jar it for winter, especially if you can’t abide by store-bought sauce. You will need a few extra-large bowls and at least a 14-liter pot for this amount or two seven-liter pots.
It might take two days of trips to the market to collect the varieties you want. Don’t let the tomatoes sit around but do plan to spend the whole afternoon with them. Plus you should check to make sure you have about a dozen 750 deciliter jars and good, rust-free lids.
Wash the assorted tomatoes and then give them a boiling water bath in an extra-large metal bowl in 5 kilo lots. Let them soak and then peel them over another bowl adding the juice as well. As you finish the batch you can wring out the skins you have discarded in another bowl, extracting more juice.
On medium heat, hit the pan with a cup of oil, allowing it to warm a little and then add the first batch of peeled tomatoes. Keep on peeling the rest of the batch, adding hot boiling water as necessary to get them to peel. Sometimes this takes two rounds.
Watch your sauce that it doesn’t burn accidentally. Stir regularly.
Then fill with all your peeled tomatoes and let it reduce for three hours minimum on medium low heat. Stir regularly. You want to reduce its volume from one-third to a half over the course of the cooking. Gradually the sauce will redden, darken and gain in richness. Add salt as needed.
Peel and chop eight cloves of garlic that will only be added in the last 15 minutes of the cooking time, along with the ¼ cup of wild oregano also at that time, olive oil for flavor, and a final seasoning.
Meanwhile you have thoroughly washed and dried the jars for canning and they are in a hot water bath or in moderately warm oven, waiting to be filled with piping hot marinara.
Close tightly, turning jars upside down to see if any liquid escapes, meaning a dud seal.
Wrap your new family in blankets somewhere in the house to cool.
Perhaps water boil the jars the next day for 10 minutes to be extra safe.
Enjoy absolutely any time in winter.
The advantage of this pure marinara is that it can be used with anything; other than oregano and garlic, it has no other additions or background flavors. The focus here is on the quality and ripeness of the tomatoes that went in it in the first place. Which is somewhat different from the far more complicated and time-consuming spicy and chunky version below, perhaps symbolic of what I was capable of a decade ago confused too many flavors and ingredients. Now it’s a preference for a restrained, graceful, reliable, creative touch.
Spicy Chunky Marinara
14 to 18 kilos tomato peeled in hot water
3 kilos diced onion
1 kilos diced red onion
5 pods roasted and garlic
3 kilos roasted and peeled aubergine
1/2 liter olive oil
10 tablespoons salt
1 bottle dry white wine, preferably Reisling or Chardonnay
3 to 5 large bunches basil
4 to 5 smoked chipotles
Start with boiling pots of water for tomatoes. Dice onion as garlic and aubergine roast. Saute onion, chipotles. Peel the tomatoes, about 70% from the roma variety and 30% from the large fist-sized juicy varieties available in the last week of August for 50 HUF a kilo. Add bottle of wine to onion. Add your tomatoes. Pot should be able to handle 25 liters of liquid with a good thick bottom. Reduce by 1/3 minimum over three to four hours. Add aubergine and garlic half way through. Basil at the very end. You should get about 12 to 14 liters of silky, thick, scrumptuous sauce.
Meanwhile scrub jars and lids with scalding water, let dry and put in oven at low heat for half hour minimum. Fill—careful not to putting any foreign material in the jars and filling each jar one by one from the oven—screw on lids tight. Let cool overnight. Boil the jars in the next two days. They should be wrapped in newspaper during boiling and then once done put in a large blanket or coat to cool over the next night. Store. Open when hungry in winter and reheat.
15 kilos tomatoes, washed and peeled
8 pods garlic, finely chopped
¼ cup dry wild oregano
10 tablespoons sea salt
2 cups olive oil
This should be made at the peak of the tomato season when all kinds of heirlooms are available and everything has ripened on the vine and prices are low before autumn begins. Beefsteak, Romas, juicers, from soft pink to bright fire engine red, these are the varieties and this is the time to capture all that flavor and jar it for winter, especially if you can’t abide by store-bought sauce. You will need a few extra-large bowls and at least a 14-liter pot for this amount or two seven-liter pots.
It might take two days of trips to the market to collect the varieties you want. Don’t let the tomatoes sit around but do plan to spend the whole afternoon with them. Plus you should check to make sure you have about a dozen 750 deciliter jars and good, rust-free lids.
Wash the assorted tomatoes and then give them a boiling water bath in an extra-large metal bowl in 5 kilo lots. Let them soak and then peel them over another bowl adding the juice as well. As you finish the batch you can wring out the skins you have discarded in another bowl, extracting more juice.
On medium heat, hit the pan with a cup of oil, allowing it to warm a little and then add the first batch of peeled tomatoes. Keep on peeling the rest of the batch, adding hot boiling water as necessary to get them to peel. Sometimes this takes two rounds.
Watch your sauce that it doesn’t burn accidentally. Stir regularly.
Then fill with all your peeled tomatoes and let it reduce for three hours minimum on medium low heat. Stir regularly. You want to reduce its volume from one-third to a half over the course of the cooking. Gradually the sauce will redden, darken and gain in richness. Add salt as needed.
Peel and chop eight cloves of garlic that will only be added in the last 15 minutes of the cooking time, along with the ¼ cup of wild oregano also at that time, olive oil for flavor, and a final seasoning.
Meanwhile you have thoroughly washed and dried the jars for canning and they are in a hot water bath or in moderately warm oven, waiting to be filled with piping hot marinara.
Close tightly, turning jars upside down to see if any liquid escapes, meaning a dud seal.
Wrap your new family in blankets somewhere in the house to cool.
Perhaps water boil the jars the next day for 10 minutes to be extra safe.
Enjoy absolutely any time in winter.
The advantage of this pure marinara is that it can be used with anything; other than oregano and garlic, it has no other additions or background flavors. The focus here is on the quality and ripeness of the tomatoes that went in it in the first place. Which is somewhat different from the far more complicated and time-consuming spicy and chunky version below, perhaps symbolic of what I was capable of a decade ago confused too many flavors and ingredients. Now it’s a preference for a restrained, graceful, reliable, creative touch.
Spicy Chunky Marinara
14 to 18 kilos tomato peeled in hot water
3 kilos diced onion
1 kilos diced red onion
5 pods roasted and garlic
3 kilos roasted and peeled aubergine
1/2 liter olive oil
10 tablespoons salt
1 bottle dry white wine, preferably Reisling or Chardonnay
3 to 5 large bunches basil
4 to 5 smoked chipotles
Start with boiling pots of water for tomatoes. Dice onion as garlic and aubergine roast. Saute onion, chipotles. Peel the tomatoes, about 70% from the roma variety and 30% from the large fist-sized juicy varieties available in the last week of August for 50 HUF a kilo. Add bottle of wine to onion. Add your tomatoes. Pot should be able to handle 25 liters of liquid with a good thick bottom. Reduce by 1/3 minimum over three to four hours. Add aubergine and garlic half way through. Basil at the very end. You should get about 12 to 14 liters of silky, thick, scrumptuous sauce.
Meanwhile scrub jars and lids with scalding water, let dry and put in oven at low heat for half hour minimum. Fill—careful not to putting any foreign material in the jars and filling each jar one by one from the oven—screw on lids tight. Let cool overnight. Boil the jars in the next two days. They should be wrapped in newspaper during boiling and then once done put in a large blanket or coat to cool over the next night. Store. Open when hungry in winter and reheat.
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