Prix Fixe: Staples

Note: Before I get on with the actual post, I thought I'd tell everyone that I'm now a FoodBuzz featured publisher. I for one am excited teaming up with FoodBuzz.com!

Ok, on with the post...

If you remember, we've already talked about Tomato Confit, though it will get it's own post again as part of my "Staples" series.

I picked this up at my time at Carlyle, they use it in whole clove form and puree it as well to add to dishes in a different way, sauces etc. Confit as we all know means "to preserve" in French. We've all heard of Duck Confit, duck preserved it its own (very delicious) fat. Obviously garlic doesn't have it's own fat you can render, but here's what you can do.

Take as many garlic cloves that you want, skin them and remove the 'root' end. Put them in a sauce pan and just cover with veg or canola oil. Don't waste your good extra-virgin olive oil on this, veg and canola are more neutral not to mention less expensive than that bottle of olive oil you've got in your pantry. Set the pan on low heat, you'll get bubbles but you don't want them to break the surface. You want to cook them for about 45 minutes, until tender enough to offer no resistance to a knife.

Now take it off the burner, wait until the oil has cooled and transfer to airtight container. Through it in the fridge and it'll keep for just about a month. I always label and date things that I do in the fridge or freezer, habit from working and having it drilling into your brain at school.

Such a simple thing to do, not only do you have garlic you can puree or use whole in any dish, you get the oil as well which now has the flavor of garlic and can be used for many different things. For example, last Sunday I did a build your own breakfast burrito for family brunch. When I fried my potatoes, I used some of that garlic oil in the frying process, and they took on the subtle flavors of garlic without having to actually add the garlic.

Also here's another tip, reuse the oil. When get low on the cloves do more, but use the confit oil to do it. First of all why toss out the oil in the first place second, it makes all the since in the world to use the confit oil - don't want all that garlic flavor to go to waste right?

One of the staples hanging out in either my refrigerator or freezer is your basic tomato sauce. Known as a mother sauce, while not completely 'classical'. But it's still a mother sauce, even though tomatoes haven't been around as long as the other sauces that Escoffier came up with. During his time, tomatoes were considered poisonous, it's a member of the night shade family.

From tomato you can make myriad of sauces like, Creole, pizza sauce or whatever you decide to do with it. It is a vehicle after all, that's why I keep it as basic as possible so that when I pull it out of the fridge or freezer- I can add to it whatever I need for that nights particular application.

My recipe is a slight modification of Mario Batalli's "Basic Tomato Sauce" , I have a hard time disputing one of the masters of Italian Cuisine.

Here's his recipe:

1 Spanish onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

3 ounces virgin olive oil

4 tablespoons fresh thyme ( or 2 tablespoons dried )

1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded

2 - 28-ounce cans of tomatoes, crushed and mixed well with their juices

Salt, to taste

Sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat until translucent, but not brown (about 10 minutes ). Add the thyme and carrot and cook 5 more minutes. Add the tomatoes. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to just bubbling, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes. Season with salt to taste. Serve immediately, or set aside for further use. The sauce may be refrigerated for up to one week or frozen for up to 6 months.

Again who am I to argue?

Here's what I do when I come across a recipe I want to try out on my own, first time I do it, I follow it to the letter. If I like it, I'll start tinkering with it the next time around and go on to make it my own. And of course more times than not, I wont use a recipe at all.

So here's mine:

3 28 oz Cans of Whole peeled Tomato (use what fits your budget)
1 1/2 Red Onion, Med Dice (or two, I had a half laying around)
5 oz Peeled, shredded carrot (large shred if fine, you're pureeing it later)
4 Cloves Garlic, Minced (I used organic purple garlic)
TT* Dried or Fresh Thyme
TT Red Pepper Flake
2Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (The fruiter the better, but use what fits your budge)

Before I get to the instructions on how to make this wonderful sauce, the key's to a successful time in the kitchen either at home or at work is good prep and having your mise en place ready to go. You don't want to waste a lot of movement in the kitchen. As a former boss of mine use to say, "Plan your work. Work your plan." and there's a lot of truth to that.

Ok, on to the instructions.

Heat up the two tablespoon's of olive oil, once it's up to temp add red onion and sweat. Don't add the garlic right away you don't want it to burn, so give the onions a head start. Once the onion is added, sweat for a couple more minutes on med to med-low heat. Once the onion and garlic have had plenty of time to sweat, (you DO NOT want to caramelize the onion or garlic) add in your shredded carrot. The carrot is there for the sweetness, some add sugar if you wish to forgo the carrots, but for me its not that appealing to me.

Let the carrots go until they're soft.

While your aromatics are sweating, put your 28 oz of canned tomatoes into a large bowl, and here's the fun part dig your hands into the bowl and break apart the whole tomato's to a consistency of your liking. You can run it through a food mill or food processor if you choose, I have fun squishing the tomatoes through my fingers - I feel like I'm 7 again.

Once the carrots are soft, add salt, pepper, dried thyme, red pepper flake. This is all to taste folks, so want some big heat - add more pepper, or don't add them at all. I use just a pinch to give it a bit of heat, so that the sweet of the sauce comes first, and finishes with a warm heat. Stir spices around the mixture so to release the essential oils and bring out great flavor.

Now go ahead and add the tomatoes and stir to combine. Let the sauce simmer anywhere from 45 minutes to a hour. Personally the longer the better, but don't go too far or it's going to reduce way too much and almost turn paste like. I personally go about an hour or so, depending on how it's looking and tasting. Throughout the cooking process make sure you're tasting and adjusting. I can't stress that enough, keep a tasting spoon on hand, so you can taste and adjust as you go along.

Once it's done cooking, you can let it cool before the next step or if you like me you bust your immersion blender in the hot sauce and have to batch puree it in a blender. So there you go that's the next step - with a immersion blender or regular blender puree to desired consistency. If you're using a regular blender, remember fill it only half full and cover the top (even crack open the pour spout, but put a towel over it) and pulse and puree.

Transfer to containers and store. I'm going to bet it will last up to six months in the freezer, but don't take my word on that - it never lasts that long around this house. Making this sauce is built into my home cooking routine, before I use the last container I whip up another batch. I can't remember the last time I actually broke down and bought sauce from the store. For me it's all about controling what goes in, though I am figuring out among cooks well all have some control issues.

I would've add pictures of how my mise en place was laid out, but for some reason they came out way to blurry and couldn't fix it in photo shop.