Tomato sauce
Tomato sauce can refer to many different sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish, rather than as a condiment. Tomato sauces are common for meat and vegetables, but they are perhaps best known as bases for Mexican salsas or sauces for pasta dishes. Tomatoes have a rich flavor, high water content, soft flesh which breaks down easily, and the right composition to thicken into a sauce when they are cooked. All of these qualities make them ideal for simple and appealing sauces.
In countries such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, the term tomato sauce is used to describe a condiment similar to ketchup. In some of these countries, both terms are used for the condiment.
History
The first person to write about what may have been a tomato sauce was Bernardino de Sahagún, a Franciscan friar from the Kingdom of Spain who later moved to New Spain, mentioned a prepared sauce that was offered for sale in the markets of Tenochtitlan. The use of tomato sauce with pasta appeared for the first time in 1790 in the Italian cookbook L'Apicio moderno, by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi.Description
The simplest tomato sauce consists just of chopped tomatoes cooked down and simmered until it loses its raw flavor. Of course, it may be seasoned with salt, or other herbs or spices. Optionally, tomato skins may be scalded and peeled according to texture and tomato seeds may be removed for aesthetic purposes, leaving just the tomato flesh and pulp.Just like tomato puree or tomato paste, tomato sauce may be one of the ingredients in other dishes, like a tomato-based soup. The sauce is thinner than either the puree, or the paste, and it may have additional flavors.
Water is sometimes added to keep it from drying out too much. Onion and garlic are almost always sweated or sautéed at the beginning before the tomato is added, or puréed together with tomatoes and then cooked together. Other seasonings typically include dried mild chili peppers, epazote, basil, oregano, parsley, and black pepper. Ground or chopped meat is also common.
Varieties
Mexican
Tomato sauce was an ancient condiment in Mesoamerican food. The first person to write about what may have been a tomato sauce was Bernardino de Sahagún, a Franciscan friar from the Kingdom of Spain who later moved to New Spain, made note of a prepared sauce that was offered for sale in the markets of Tenochtitlan. Of this he wrote, Spaniards later brought the use of tomatoes to Europe.Basic Mexican tomato sauce was traditionally prepared with a molcajete to puree the tomatoes. Food that is cooked in tomato sauce is known as entomatada. Tomato sauce is used as a base for spicy sauces and moles.
Italian
The misconception that the tomato has been central to Italian cuisine since its introduction from the Americas is often repeated. Though the tomato was introduced from the Spanish New World to European botanists in the 16th century, tomato sauce made a relatively late entry in Italian cuisine: in Antonio Latini's cookbook Lo scalco alla moderna.Latini was chef to the Spanish viceroy of Naples, and one of his tomato recipes is for sauce alla spagnuola, "in the Spanish style". The first known use of tomato sauce with pasta appears in the Italian cookbook L'Apicio moderno, by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi, edited in 1790.
Italian varieties of tomato sauce range from the very simple pasta al pomodoro to the piquant puttanesca and arrabbiata sauces. Tomato sauce with pasta can stand on its own or it can also be paired with ingredients such as Italian sausage, clams, bacon cubes, tuna, meatballs or vegetables, for a more lively pasta dish.
Tomato-garlic sauce is prepared using tomatoes as a main ingredient, and is used in various cuisines and dishes. In Italian cuisine, alla pizzaiola refers to tomato-garlic sauce, which is used on pizza, pasta and meats.
French
Sauce tomate is one of the five mother sauces of classical French cooking, as codified by Auguste Escoffier in the early 20th century. It consists of salt belly of pork, onions, bay leaves, thyme, tomato purée or fresh tomatoes, roux, garlic, salt, sugar, and pepper.New Zealand and South Africa
The most common use of the term tomato sauce in New Zealand and South Africa is to describe a popular, commercially produced condiment that is a type of table sauce, similar to American ketchup but without vinegar, which is typically applied to foods such as meat pies, sausages, other cooked meat, and fish and chips. Tomato-based sauces served with pasta would commonly be referred to as "pasta sauce" or "Napoletana sauce".United Kingdom
The meaning of the term "tomato sauce" depends on the context; on a restaurant menu the phrase "in a tomato sauce" means a freshly prepared tomato based sauce as used on pasta, and colloquially it may refer to either the pasta sauce, or American ketchup.Australia
In Australia "tomato sauce" generally refers to the same style of table sauce as American ketchup but varies in mixture and doesn't contain onions. Some sources say that Australian tomato sauce has less tomato than ketchup, but this varies between brands and is not a universal feature. Australian tomato sauce is used in the same way as American ketchup."Tomato sauce" may also be used in its generic English meaning of a sauce primarily based on tomatoes, as in a menu item "Gnocchi in a tomato sauce" where it would be understood that the sauce would be of the kind used in Italian cooking for pastas.
United States
In the U.S., "tomato sauce" refers to two distinct sauces. One is a tomato concentrate with salt and minimal herbs, used in cooking. This product is considered incomplete and not normally used as is. Related ingredients are tomato purée and tomato paste, each of which is similar but paste has a thicker consistency. Tomato purée and tomato paste have FDA standards of identity for percentage of tomato solids, and generally do not contain seasonings other than salt; tomato sauce is nonstandardized.The second use of the term "tomato sauce" in the U.S. is for a cooked sauce of tomatoes, usually containing olive oil and garlic. This type of tomato sauce is generally served with pasta, and sometimes with meat. Less commonly, it is served with chicken or beef alone. One popular variety of tomato sauce is marinara sauce, an Italian-American term for a simple tomato sauce with herbs – mostly basil and oregano.
Contrary to what the name might suggest it is without seafood. In Italy, marinara refers either to sauces made with tomato and garlic or to seafood-based sauces or foods; in this case, the name does not imply that tomato is either included or excluded.
Some Italian Americans on the East Coast and around the Chicago area refer to tomato sauce as "gravy", "tomato gravy", or "Sunday gravy", especially sauces with a large quantity of meat simmered in them, similar to the Italian Neapolitan ragù. The term "Sunday gravy" derives from the Italian tradition of having a large, family dinner on Sunday afternoons. "Gravy" is an erroneous English translation from the Italian sugo which means juice, but can also mean sauce.
The expression for "gravy" in Italian is sugo d'arrosto, which is literally "juice of a roast" and is not specifically tomato sauce. Sicilian Americans in communities like Buffalo and Rochester, New York use the terms "sarsa" and "succu" interchangeably for tomato sauces of all types used with pasta, and "gravy" only in reference to brown meat gravies. The Italian-American community of New Orleans, however, is largely Sicilian in origin and takes great pride in its Creole-Italian cuisine largely based on what is known locally as "red gravy".
American supermarkets commonly carry a variety of prepared tomato sauces described as "spaghetti sauce" or "pasta sauce". Common variations include meat sauce, marinara sauce, and sauces with mushrooms or sweet red peppers.