lobstercatcher

How do you make the old school style sauce? Not plain tomato sauce. This is the browner colored kind even though it probably does have tomato. On a plate it sorta separates and you can see little pools of olive oil. Whole different taste than tomato sauce.

Any real Italians out there?

TorFed

Yup. Recipe has been handed down. Depending on strength of ingredients, sometimes you need to alter, but here is what it is. This recipe started over a hundred years ago with my great grandparents in Sicily. This will make a batch, enough for a few lbs of pasta.

3tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 head of garlic sliced
1 yellow onion chopped
4 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes 'italian style'
1 12 oz can tomato paste
1 cup basil chopped
1/2-1 cup red wine (depends on your taste)
cracked pepper to taste (or 2 tbsp)
salt to taste (or 1 tbsp)
dried oregano to tase (or 1 tbsp)
4tsp white sugar
crushed red pepper to taste

Saute the garlic and onion in the olive oil over medium heat. Once translucent (10-15 min) add rest of ingredients in the order listed above. Bring to a high simmer (not quite a boil). You need to watch closely, if your sauce ever boils, you are done. Once simmering, reduce heat to low (should never be more than a single central bubble) and cook 3 or so hours. If the bottom burns to the pot, and this is crucial, you screwed up, but it can be salvaged. Just DO NOT SCRAPE THE BURNED SAUCE AND MIX IT IN. Leave it burning to the bottom if need be and reduce heat.

NJFISH

Sounds like you are describing bolognese which is meat sauce with tomato paste to get the deep brown color. This needs to develop and takes some time.

Try this one instead:

Sauté garlic in some olive oil until golden
Add 2 cans of whole Italian tomatoes, my favorite are Cento brand
Let them cook for a while then crush them
Add fresh basil leaves, salt, pepper
Never add oregano! (Unless making pizza sauce)

In a frying pan, brown Italian sausage & pork spare ribs then put in the pot of gravy and let the whole thing simmer for a few hours until the meat starts to fall off the ribs. You'll need to drain the grease off every so often from the pork. Now would be a good time to learn how to make meatballs too

TorFed

You can certainly try it. I haven't done it that way so I can't really answer.

Also, there is a difference between tomato sauce (What I cringe at people calling 'gravy' ever since the Sopranos made the term popular, I've never heard a real Italian use the term outside of tv.) and marinara. You may be describing marinara, which is made more with oil and diced fresh tomatoes (no canned stuff) but wouldn't be darker in color.

Bolognese is nowhere near meat sauce with tomato paste. If anything it is closer to meat in marinara with carrots. Sorry bud, but you are off on this. The only similarity is bolognese, when made incorrectly, is oily.

alligatorgar

When I want Italian I go here...
http://www.andreasrestaurant.com/menus_dinner.html

http://www.andreasrestaurant.com/location.html

myyellas2k

Same as my grand parents and on in my family.
I let mine simmer for 5+ hours. As I usually start on a Sunday at 0730. With a first cup of coffee and let the house smell awesome.
But I do use more oil. And in one of the cans of the old paste cans I out in 1/2 can of water too

TorFed

Longer the better. You just need to keep it super low. If the temps get too high, you will cook the flavor out of it (which, I am sure you know)

NJFISH

Not interested in a pissing match, but it most certainly is a meat based sauce. While I did not include the recipe, I know all about how to make it.

Are you guys seriously measuring out the ingredients?

myyellas2k

the cans of tomatoes.... well ehh

while the other ingredients - not really but kind of by eye.

and its gravy if it has meat, sauce if not

turkey gravy is "brown gravy"

Seefood Man

All the above and don't be afraid to throw some lamb in the mix. Wonderful!

Boataholic

I came up with these when I googled "italian gravy"-

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/i...vy-recipe.html

http://underthetuscangun.com/talk/fo...auce-vs-gravy/

Double tyme

The slow and low technique is interesting. Sauce is one of the few things my wife makes, as I'm not a big pasta guy. We will try this recipe next time.

We add beef broth as a lazy mans way to get "richness", and she goes a little crazy on the meat too. Hot sausage, mild sausage, short ribs, veal/pork/beef mixture, and sometimes chuck if the mood hits her.

Are you covering (which is my interpretation of simmering) or reducing it with the lid off?

TorFed

Lid off, temp of sauce should never get high enough to reduce. If that is the case you will be burning the hell out of the bottom. To not thin it out, maybe us boullion cubes crushed and whisked in a few tbs of water and mix it in as opposed to the beef broth.

cgrand

olive oil
onion
garlic
crushed red pepper
crushed tomatoes
the juice from the tomato cans
red wine
grated carrot
small amount of sugar
oregano & thyme, bay leaves
salt & pepper
leave the lid off, low rumble is all you want

as far as meat thats up to you
during lent it's meatless, other wise i load up
good italian sausage, a chuck roast, and/or pork country ribs are all tasty

lobstercatcher

I have tomatoes in the garden and red onions. How can I substitute those in there and still get something good ?

cgrand

pick the tomatoes and make sure they are good and ripe
with a knife make an "X" just thru the skin at one end, and drop them in boiling water
after 30 seconds, take them out and dunk into ice water

the skin will peel right off, and you can then chop/crush/puree' whatever and use just like canned. the red onion you can use just like any other onion. fresh basil is always a good idea also. when you use fresh tomatoes you may have to add a little tomato paste and/or tomato juice

TorFed

Easy. Dice the tomatoes and onion. Get some garlic and basil. Sautee the garlic and onion in a decent amount of olive oil, as the oil will be your base. Add the diced tomatoes, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper if you like. Cook all ingredients together another 10 min or so. Serve over a finer pasta like angel hair. Add capers or kalamata olives to the sauce if you like. Also that exact sauce, with less oil, is killer over grilled fish.

jdm61

Bolognese sauce gets made "improperly" a fair bit in Europe outside of Italy from what I have seen in the past. As for "gravy" isn't that a Philly area term? Obviously a lot of our favorite old school "Italian" dishes are actually Italian-American dishes reflecting the different ingredients, etc that you can get over here. For starters, I would think that the average cook's access to cow meat was better here than in the old country once we had refrigerated rail cars. Good stuff, though.

SeaSquid631

This is what my granny says, and if you argue she will smack the shit out of you.

jdm61

's best as I can tell, "gravy" is the term used by people in places like Philly, Jersey, etc to describe the basic American version of the Southern Italian red sauce. Real Bolognese supposedly doesn't always resemble the stuff you see over here or even inn other parts of Europe sold as Bolognese.