Recently I’ve been buying a few cookbooks from the thrift shop. Saves money over getting the new ones, saves second-hand goods from being tossed, and does the job I need in finding recipe ideas.
One of the cookbooks I got is a cookbook on pasta sauces. I’ve been holding off on making pasta until I could portion the servings properly, and I recently just got a portioning tool to help me with that. However, when I wanted to try a recipe from the book, I found surprisingly that the recipes called for fresh tomatoes.
Now, the cookbook is by no means new, seeing how the publication date is 1987. From what I’ve heard, canned tomatoes are actually preferred over fresh, though I can’t recall the reasoning as to why. I was curious about whether culinary knowledge has evolved since the publication of this book where common practice has changed to prefer canned tomatoes over fresh, or if the differences I’ve heard about are unfounded or incorrect.
On top of that, I was curious about other aspects. Would making pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes (namely Roma tomatoes) be cheaper than using canned? Also, since I’m trying to be more environmentally conscious, would canned tomatoes have a higher carbon footprint than fresh, or would the differences be negligible?
Thanks in advance! I likely won’t be able to respond to comments right away, but I do appreciate any and all help.
Canned San Marzano over fresh tomato, except when the tomato is in season, perfectly ripe and full of glutamate. The MSG stuff.
I make friends a honey and garlic tomato sauce at my place, perfect served cold with bread or warm on pasta.
300 ml olive oil At least 6 cloves of garlic 1 medium onion cut into 8 pieces Optional a red bell pepper or lombok if you like spice.
Fry the garlic, onion and such till the garlic is at least medium brown.
Add 2 x canned San Marzano tomato and be careful, oil and water is not a great combo so lower the heat. Poor it in on one side of the pan then stir.
Stick blender, the oil and tomato will emulsify and change color to a bright red sauce.
Add honey, salt and pepper and any finely chopped herbs, like basil, sage, tarragon, oregano, majoran and such and stick blender a few pulses. I always add fresh thyme and rosemary later because stick blendering them makes the sauce bitter.
Bon appetite.