Tomato sauce; modified for fresh tomatoes from Marcella Hazan’s famous recipe

I don't have photographs of the sauce, but here's one of pizza made with it!
Edited to add: Just found photographs of the sauce-making process from last summer --- added them below.




Use ripe, in-season tomatoes. We use the watery kind, which makes the yield heartbreakingly low, but the flavor deliciously concentrated. This sauce freezes well: last summer we made a lot and then used it for a newly-instituted weekly pizza night. It also meant we could make quick and delicious pasta dinners, and --- not quick, but not super daunting either --- eggplant parmagiana.


Recipe for a 6-quart dutch oven: If you have two such, use the heavier one for step 2, and the lighter one for step 1.

Step 1: Fill a 6-quart dutch oven with 
— Tomatoes, cut into large chunks (I don't know how many pounds!)
Sprinkle with 
— 1/2 teaspoon salt 
— 2 teaspoon sugar
Add
— 1/4 cup water
Bring to a boil, boil for 20-25 minutes. 

(Why Step 1: In order to remove skin and seeds. Cooking the tomatoes with salt and sugar softens them enough that they go easily through a hand-cranked food mill. I've ordered KitchenAid's "Grinder/Strainer" attachment; if this is able to remove skin and seeds without cooking, I might skip the pre-cooking step.) 

Step 2: Put cooked tomatoes through food mill into heavier dutch oven, if using two dutch ovens, or into large bowl and then back into original 6-quart dutch oven if using one. Add
— 1-2 yellow onions, cut into large dice
— 4-8 tablespoons butter
Boil on medium-high heat (monitor, stirring occasionally) until slightly thicker. (This will take 10-20 minutes, during this phase stir every 5 minutes). Once the sauce just begins to stick to the bottom, lower heat to medium-low, cover with spatter guard, and stir more often, scraping bottom well. When it gets even thicker, lower heat to a simmer. It will want to burn. Don’t let it!
Reduce until quite thick. Then take off heat and season to taste with
— fish sauce or salt
— more sugar if necessary. 







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