Marinara

Oh. My. Gosh.  So, I'm not much of an Italian food fan.  Seems like it's always really heavy.  Whenever we talked about it, Chuck would always say, "You know how marinara is when you go to a really nice Italian restaurant?" Well, I didn't. 1: Marinara is a jar is so cheap, I wondered why you'd pay a lot to have it at a restaurant. 2:  We had marinara at home often and when we went out it was a treat to have some alfredo... I was a huge fan.  Looking at pictures of myself when I was a huge fan, it's pretty obvious that I loved the stuff. 3:  I never went to fancy Italian restaurants. I never really went to fancy restaurants at all.

He originally fixed this the day after our big Halloween party.  It was perfect comfort food and I fell in love with the sauce.  That night we had it on pasta.  The stuff freezes really well and we had it later on meatball subs and chicken Parmesan.  I'd be happy drinking the stuff.

He told me there was a lot of trial and error finding this recipe.  It was his "secret."  One of the secrets I figured out early on, a couple of weeks before he made this: sugar.  When my parents were in town, he let the other secret go to my mom: salt pork. This immediately made me think of "Little House on the Prairie."

The first time he made it, I paid absolutely zero attention to the preparation.  The second time, I wrote down everything as I sat at the counter at his parents' house in northern Minnesota, sick with the flu.  Then, it was my turn.  Over Christmas, I was home with my family, he was home with his.  We figured the ultimate test for his recipes would be for me to recreate them, without him sitting at the counter correcting me.  I made it for my family.  I ran into a few hiccups and my immersion blender was lower quality than Chuck's and didn't do as good of a job.  It was still a little chunky.  Chuck told me to call it "Rustic Marinara."  It was still delicious.

I was very excited to post the recipe but I had zero pictures.  So today, Chuck is out of town working, and I made up another batch and documented the whole thing.  Usually I drink wine, write notes, and take pictures.  This time there was no wine and it was all me cooking, taking pictures, and jotting more notes.  It turned out awesome.

Marinara

Ingredients

     8 oz                     Salt Pork 
     2 (28oz) cans    San Marzano peeled tomatoes
     14.5oz can          Tomato sauce
     6 oz can              Tomato paste
     1 1/2                    Yellow onion, diced
     4                          Garlic cloves, minced
     1 T                       Basil, freshly chopped
     2 T                       Italian flat leaf parsley, freshly chopped
     2 T                       Granulated sugar
                                  Kosher salt
                                  Fresh ground pepper

Directions

     1:     Sear all sides of the salt pork in a pan heated to medium heat.   Tip from Chuck:  
                     Bacon can be used in a pinch, but ask the butcher where the salt pork is, it's not 
                     always by the bacon.  If you use bacon, only use a little grease because it is 
                     smokey and salty.  Salt pork is "simply just fatty salt," Once there are a good 
                     amount of drippings and the salt pork is cooked, remove it from the pan, leaving 
                     the drippings.

      2:    Add onion, and a pinch of salt and pepper to the drippings in the pan.  Let them 
                       sweat a bit and get nice, soft, and brown.

     3:     Add the garlic and let cook for a couple of minutes before adding both cans of peeled 
                      tomatoes. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.  Tip from Chuck: Getting San 
                      Marzano tomatoes is key but they can be tricky to find, and they are a little 
                      more expensive than peeled plum tomatoes. If you used plum tomatoes, you 
                      will need to add some extra basil and sugar.

     4:     Once this is given some time to simmer, add the tomato sauce, basil, parsley, and 
                      the tomato paste.  And, of course, another pinch of salt and pepper.

     5:     Next, the sauce needs to be blended.  Chuck's fancy immersion blender works great 
                      but it wasn't available to me and I didn't want "rustic" sauce.  I have a pretty 
                      nice regular blender that I used.  Also, my pan was a little small to try to use an 
                      immersion blender in.  I blended in small batches, with the hole in the blender 
                      lid open but covered with a paper towel, and started very slow and slowly 
                      increased  the blending speed. Be careful not to have a sauce explosion that 
                      paints your entire kitchen red.


     6:  Once the sauce was a smooth consistency, I returned it to the pot at low heat and 
                       allowed to simmer while I cleaned up the blender and the rest of the kitchen.  
                       This allows the flavors to meld a little before adding the finishing touches.  

     7:     Sprinkle the sugar into the pot and mix in well.  Tip from Chuck:  The sugar cuts the 
                        acidity of the tomatoes, so add a couple of tablespoons, then taste.  Add more 
                        if necessary. I ended up using 3 T in this batch.

     8:     Allow to simmer for a bit until you are ready to serve it.  There's no exciting, 
                       delicious, final picture for this recipe because I froze it for future use.  
                       Bummer.  But it still was beautiful in the freezer containers! It made about 9 
                       cups of sauce.