Pizza Today - April 2022 - 37

R
ed sauce, marinara, pomodoro,
gravy. There are so many different
ways to say it and even more
to make it. A pizza maker's sauce is one
of their most important recipes and often
times a very personal thing. My mom still
makes hers the way my Sicilian grandfather
taught her. The secret ingredient: a fried
egg in it that they remove before slathering
the sauce onto pizza or pasta.
What one puts into theirs often reflects a
person's cooking style. It can be as simple as
plum tomatoes, salt and a pinch of oregano
or becomes really complex by adding
everything from anchovies to hot honey.
For me, a sauce recipe really comes
down to the tomatoes you use. The final
product will only be as good as the quality
of the fruit you put into it. Luckily for all
of us American pizza makers, there are a
few different companies that sell fantastic
canned tomatoes. If you buy good quality
tomatoes, you don't need to add sugar or
even a lot of salt to make your sauce pop.
If you do want to increase the sweetness, a
great way to do that is to add a thick tomato
paste. Depending on your ratio to crushed
or whole plum tomatoes, this can change
the consistency of your sauce slightly, but
I think it's worth it for the robust burst of
natural sweetness it provides. Another way
to enhance the flavor is by simply sprinkling
grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese onto
your red sauce as you are making your pizza.
Of course, you can always make your
own sauce out of fresh tomatoes, but the
growing season really only lasts from July
to September. This means unless you are
canning your own tomatoes during this
stretch, you should be buying them, or they
will not be the best quality.
Canned tomatoes come in
various forms. Generally, they are all
plum or pear style tomatoes, but you can
buy them whole, in strips, crushed, with or
without skins on, as a concentrated paste or
even already mixed into a sauce. Depending
on which variation you choose to buy will
affect the overall flavor and consistency of
your sauce.
In general, red sauces fall into two
categories: cooked and uncooked. Your basic
pizza marinara should always be uncooked.
The reason for this is that canned tomatoes
are already pressure cooked and once it
goes onto the pizza it will be cooked in the
oven another time. You don't want to triple
cook your sauce. This rule applies to simple
red sauces containing tomatoes, herbs and
spices (fresh or dried). The other category
of red sauces is if there are ingredients that
need to be cooked down before hand, in
order to come together and impart all of
the flavors into the tomatoes. Vodka sauce
is one that definitely needs to be cooked
beforehand as are sauces containing meats
like sausage or pancetta. Most sauces can
be stored in an airtight container for about
five days.
It is also important to tailor your
sauce to fit the style of pizza you
are making. You don't want a super
heavy sauce on a delicate Neapolitan pie
just as you want something more substantial
on a Sicilian crust. When you add your red
sauce is also important.
On a Detroit-style pizza, for example,
the sauce should be ladled on top of the
pie after it comes out of the oven. True
Neapolitan pizza sauce can only consist of
D.O.P San Marzano tomatoes and a pinch
of sea salt. Roman-style pizza dictates that
you put the sauce on before the first bake,
whereas Sicilian you usually put the sauce
on after the par-bake. These days, with a lot
of new pizza makers blending styles and
creating their own genre, sauce can be a very
personalized thing. We do three different
styles of pizza at my shop and due to space
and labor shortages we only make one basic
marinara sauce that we use on all three.
There are so many ways to liven up your
basic red sauce. If you like a little bit of
spice, try adding chilies or even just pepper
flakes to the sauce. If you're looking to add
a slightly gamey, salty flavor you can either
throw in a piece of prosciutto as the sauce is
cooking down or sauté guanciale as the base.
One of my favorite sauces on both pizza
and pasta is an Amatriciana. To convert this
classic Italian pasta sauce to a pizza sauce I
added a little heavy cream and finished with
grated Pecorino.
There are so many ways to make your
sauce unique to your shop but whatever you
do, it's great to have a good base sauce as
a starting point and then experiment from
there. Here are two basic recipes to get you
started. Feel free to veer as far off course
your imagination allows.
MARINARA WITH ANCHOVIES:
2 anchovies
3 cloves garlic (thinly sliced)
2 sprigs thyme
2 cup crushed tomatoes
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Heat olive oil in sauté pan. Add anchovy
and garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes (until
garlic is just browning but not burnt). Add
in thyme, tomatoes and salt. Cook on low
heat for 10 minutes. Let cool and use as
you please.
VODKA SAUCE:
3 cups crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup yellow onion, small dice (1/2
onion)
1 tablespoon garlic, slivered (3 cloves)
1/4 cup vodka
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 piece prosciutto
Heat EVOO over medium heat and
add onions. Sauté for 4-5 minutes until
translucent. Add garlic and prosciutto.
Sauté another 1-2 minutes. Add salt,
pepper, chili flakes and tomato paste.
Cook 1 minute.
Add vodka and cook 2 minutes or until
fully reduced. Add crushed tomatoes.
Cook for 2 minutes and then stir in heavy
cream. Let simmer another 15 minutes.
AUDREY KELLY owns Audrey Jane's
Pizza Garage in Boulder, Colorado.
Pizza Today - April 2022

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