The Infamous "Sauce Recipe"

So apparently, according to my girlfriend, I owe everyone willing to pay attention a sauce recipe. My sauce recipe is not necessarily typical, it's not low-fat, it takes forever but it tastes damn good. None of the techniques are above an established beginner other than having the patience to wait around a bit.

Ingredients
1 Hormel Salt Pork (you can find it in almost ANY supermarket, although none of us really know its there.
2 Large Onions
4 Cloves of Garlic
Olive Oil
Dried Oregano
Dried Basil
2 Bay Leaves
2 28 Ounce cans of Tuttorosso Crushed Tomatoes (with basil)

Tools:
Wooden Spoon
A Blender
4 Qt Pot and Lid


The process takes at least 3 hours, it can be rushed if need be, but "your patience will be rewarded."


Add about 1 tbsp of oil to the 4qt pan and place on a medium low flame. Using a sharp knife, remove the skin from the salt pork and discard. Dice the remaining piece of pork into a medium dice. The dice should be about the size of your pinky nail. Add to the warmed pot and begin rendering out the fat. Cut a large dice on the onions and add them to the pot as well as a pinch of salt.

Stir this every ten or so minutes just to make sure the bacon does not stick and burn to the pan. What you want to do is cook this down until the majority of the fat is rendered from the salt pork and the onions are dark brown and literally falling apart to mush. Usually between 45 -60 minutes on low heat, depending on your burner.

Take this mixture and put it in the blender and let it go until it is mush. It may need a little thinning so the blender does not bind, do that with some olive oil if need be.

Put the blended mixture into the pot and turn the heat up to medium. Finely dice the garlic and add it to the pan. The white garlic will stand out against the dark brown mixture, cook it until the garlic is very fragrant and it begins become more closely colored to the meat mixture. Once the garlic is a nice brown shade add 1 tbsp of each of the spices and the 2 bay leaves. Cook for about 2-3 minutes and then stir in the crushed tomatoes. Make sure you scrape the bottom of the pan to remove any browned bits and stir the sauce well to incorporate the seasoning. Lower the heat to low, or simmer, and let it go. Stir every 20 minutes or longer, it all depends on your burner and the quality of your sauce pan. You do not want to scorch the tomatoes. They contain some sugar which can burn pretty easily and if you mix that into your sauce it will overwhelm a lot of flavors. After the sauce begins to bubble you want to start skimming the foam at the top in between stirs. It removes the impurities in the sauce and, in my opinion, makes it less acidic. (Now is when you can use the pot lid. Leave it cracked so moisture can come out of the pot and the sauce can thicken)

That's pretty much it. Taste the sauce every 30 minutes or so until it has the desired flavor and consistancy. The more you cook it, the less raw tomato flavor it will have.

It's pretty difficult to describe all of the details in such a forum so if you decide to make the sauce and have any questions just comment the blog or send an email. Catinella@gmail.com Good luck!