My wife and I have been gathering for Christmas dinner at Gary and Julie Wagner’s house in the Napa Valley for the past twenty years. An accomplished cook in his own right, Gary loves to help when his professional chef friends come to cook in his kitchen. He makes tons of his famous tomato sauce every year when tomatoes are in season and freezes it so his lucky friends get to have some year-round.
If you don’t have access to heirloom tomatoes or vine-ripened garden tomatoes, use whatever you can find that are ripe and sweet, or substitute canned. You’ll be sorely disappointed if you use the mealy, pale supermarket things that pass for tomatoes. Gary doesn’t skin his tomatoes, which saves time and works just fine.
MAKES: 2 quarts
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup good extra-virgin olive oil
- 5 pounds heirloom tomatoes (very ripe, various sizes and colors), cored and cut into chunks
- 2 onions, coarsely chopped
- 1 red onion, coarsely chopped
- 1 garlic head, not peeled
- A large handful of fresh basil leaves, torn
- A handful of fresh thyme sprigs, tied together with butcher’s twine
- A handful of fresh rosemary sprigs, tied together with butcher’s twine
- 3 bay leaves
- 2 anchovy fillets
- 1 tablespoon sweet Hungarian paprika or Spanish paprika (pimentón de la Vera; see Sources)
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS:
- MAKE THE SAUCE
- Heat the oil in an 8-quart saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat.
- Add the remaining ingredients plus 1 tablespoon salt and 2 teaspoons pepper, and stir until well combined.
- Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook, uncovered, for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Add water if the sauce becomes too thick.
- Season to taste with additional salt and pepper if desired.
- PREPARE THE SAUCE FOR US
- Remove the garlic, thyme bundle, rosemary bundle, and bay leaves, and discard.
- Put the sauce through a food mill fitted with a large-holed disk to separate out the skins.
- Or, if you don’t own a food mill, put the sauce into a blender in batches and blend to a smooth sauce.
- If the sauce is too thin, return it to the pot and reduce it over high heat until lightly thickened. (For the cassoulet, you want it fairly thin so that the beans will absorb the liquid. If you’re using the sauce for pasta, you’ll want it fairly thick.)
- Cool.
- Freeze excess sauce in plastic 1-pint containers, leaving a 1-inch space at the top. The sauce will keep for 1 year in the freezer.
