Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Mid's Pasta Sauce

Mr Minx loves to make (and eat) spaghetti and meatballs, and when he doesn't have the time to put together a home-made sauce, he has to resort to the jarred variety. I'm particular about my sauce - it must cling to the pasta and coat it well. I hate sauce that's water and chunks; I like chunky sauce, but its liquid component must be thick.

We found a sauce called Mid's at Wegman's the other day.   It's perfect.  I see from the Web site that the primary tomato product is tomato paste. Bingo! And that's going to be what I use in my homemade sauce from now on.

Unless I'm lazy and use Mid's.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you use a recipe for your sauce or just throw it together? I've been playing with homemade sauce and sometimes it comes out watery and chunky, but tasty and others a little thicker. I do use some tomato paste. Care to post your recipe? Thanks.

theminx said...

Hi Kristine,

I don't tend to use a recipe when I make sauce, but I have consulted Mario Batali's Molto Mario and Babbo cookbooks in the past. Lots of sauce recipes call for canned or fresh tomatoes, and that's where the watery/chunky sauce comes from.

I saute onions and garlic in olive oil, deglaze with wine, add canned tomatoes and a little paste, plus seasonings. Even after simmering a long time, the tomatoes don't break down enough. I think switching to a mostly paste-based sauce and adding tomatoes for texture will work better for me.