Gravy

"When the stars make you drool just like pasta e fagiole, that's amore." -- Dean Martin

There's nothing in the world quite like a good homemade tomato sauce -- a delicacy which I was raised to call "gravy." The texture, the taste, the catharsis of chopping and peeling and stirring the ingredients, and the way it makes your house smell on a Sunday morning all defy description. And since I feel like everyone should be able to make a decent tomato sauce from scratch and feel the joy of it for themselves, I'm going to share my family's recipe with all of you.

Unlike many of the recipes I post here, this one will be delivered in paragraph form. I can't supply exact quantities of ingredients or give you an abbreviated description of the motions because I don't cook my gravy that way. A few posts ago, I described the essence of Italian cooking as simple and classic with clean flavors and a focus on seasonal items, but in retrospect, that isn't a complete definition. Italian cooking also involves community -- the random cousins and neighbors who bring you figs, cucuzza, and fresh bread for no reason, the army of paisanos in the kitchen helping you to prepare the ingredients, the second army who shows up for dinner, the third army who shows up for dessert. Every meal is a conversation from start to finish, so a conversation is how I'll teach you to prepare one.

First, you find yourself a gravy pot. I like to use an insanely heavy, three-gallon, yellow enamel pot I inherited from my great-grandmother, but anything big will do just fine. (I'm investing in one of these once the yellow one finally wears out.) Next, you choose your tomatoes. I think plum tomatoes make pretty excellent gravy, but it's up to you. In any case, estimate how many you'll need by filling your pot with whole tomatoes.

When you get all those tomatoes home, wash them and cut a big X into the smooth end of each one. Fill your pot with water and turn the burner on high. Fill a big bowl with ice water and set it next to the stove. When your water is boiling raucously, drop in your tomatoes a few at a time. After about a minute -- when the skin has started to peel near the Xs -- scoop them out of the boiling water and plunge them into the ice water. You can remove them and set them aside once they're cool to the touch. Once all of your tomatoes have been boiled and shocked, dump out and dry your pot and your bowl so you can reuse both. Peel all the tomatoes, remove and discard all the seeds and stems, and break up the flesh into some semblance of a puree (either by mashing or food-processing). Place the puree back into the big bowl and set aside.

I've done this much a grand total of once in my life. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, I buy two boxes of Pomi strained tomatoes (or one big can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes) and use that instead of pureed fresh tomatoes. It's the exact same thing, only Pomi does the hard work for us.

The rest of the instructions assume that you're using about six cups of pureed tomatoes for your gravy, so scale as needed. Mince one medium white onion and sautee it in a generous amount of olive oil over medium heat in the big pot until the pieces start becoming translucent. Add five minced cloves of garlic and continue sauteeing until everything starts to brown. I like to add a little bit of minced pancetta, prosciutto, or anchovy here for flavor, but you can omit that. Once everything is nicely browned, deglaze with a cup of marsala wine or dry sherry. Let some of the alcohol boil off and add your tomatoes. Stir in six or seven torn-up fresh basil leaves, two pinches of oregano, and a pinch of black pepper, then lower the heat a little and cover. Cook for at least two hours, stirring every ten minutes or so. As it cooks, the gravy will darken and thicken. This recipe yields enough gravy for a pound of the pasta of your choice (plus a little extra), and if you're not planning on feeding an army, it freezes exceptionally well.

This makes a lovely plain marinara sauce, but, of course, you can transform it by adding meats or vegetables to the pot along with the garlic. Add diced red pepper and a little bit of cayenne for a romesco sauce, tuna or crab meat and a little chili powder (with parsley swapped for the basil) for seafood gravy, mushrooms or eggplant or spinach for a vegetable gravy (or all three for a modified puttanesca sauce), or, of course, crumbled-up sausage, chopmeat, or meatballs for traditional meat gravy. You'll want to cook your vegetables until they're soft and cook your meat until it's browned before deglazing.

It may seem like a lot, but it becomes second-nature after a while. And really, jarred sauce can't compare.