Food Club #5: Sunday Sauce Spaghetti
Recipe: So, we merged three different recipes here. I used this one for the base suggestions, this one for the meat sauce portion, and then took general tips and tricks to supplement them from the Larry Gomez Secret Recipe, which I printed out of Fort Knox.
Difficulty: 2.7/5
Review: 8.5/10
So, I really freaked it here. I had some tagliatelle last weekend and decided I wanted to make a Sunday Sauce this week to meal prep for lunches. I’ve done it in the past, but I still like to kind of mix it up each time and, this time, I opted for a more traditional family-style kind of sauce with a thicker noodle, and it turned out great.
Again, I’m not super into red meat, so I decided to substitute pork, beef and veal for some spicy Italian chicken sausage and ground turkey. You miss a little bit of the richness in the flavor of the red meat, but ultimately the health benefits outweigh the little bit of flavor to me. And while I’m being particular, you absolutely must use San Marzano canned tomatoes for any kind of Sunday sauce. Regular canned tomatoes or fresh ones of varying produce quality aren’t gonna have the richness of flavor you get from the San Marzanos. Usually in the past, I’ve done the whole peeled tomatoes and blended them on my own with an immersion blender, but this time I went with pre-crushed.
Also, in the past, I’ve been a cheap and starving college student or a general run-of-the-mill lazy fool and opted for dried oregano and basil. Going for the fresh stuff really, really cannot be recommended enough. Additionally, I threw in a block of parmesan during the simmering process (make sure to discard the rind after!) for some richness and creaminess and a carrot, to reduce some of the acidity with natural sweetness, as opposed to sugar. I also added a half cup of some Chianti Classico red wine, to really punch up the Tuscan bold flavors, and it really worked.
Ultimately, with a wife who doesn’t love tomatoes and tomato sauce, Sunday Sauce isn’t something I make super often, maybe once a year, but if you’re feeling it, there’s really nothing better. I love this recipe and I’ll be going back to it in the future for sure.
