» Meet 
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the jarred-marinara-sauce fights. I'm your host, Ed Levine of Serious Eats.
In this corner, weighing, I don't know, 200 pounds, from New Orleans by way of Fall River, Massachusetts, is the "Bam" man himself, Emeril Lagasse. In this corner, weighing, I wouldn't want to guess out of deference to her stature as the leading, most famous Italian-American chef of her time, from Istria by way of Whitestone, Queens, is the real deal, Lidia Bastianich, star of her own PBS series, Lydia's Family Table. And finally, in the third corner (maybe the ring a triangle in this case?), from East Harlem, New York, by way of, well, East Harlem, New York, is Frankie Pellegrino of Rao's, the only restaurant I can think of completely booked up a decade in advance.
Tonight, these three titans of the food world are going to battle it out for the Heavyweight Championship of the Celebrity Jarred Marinara Sauce World.
Before we begin our bout, I thought it would be useful to explain what marinara sauce is, and how it differs from tomato sauce. It was not easy to ascertain this information. Marcella Hazan? No help. The Gastronomy of Italy? Nothing there about marinara sauce either. To the rescue comes one of our contestants, Ms. Bastianich. In her book, Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen, she writes, "The difference between marinara and tomato sauce is this: Marinara is a quick sauce, seasoned only with garlic, pepper, and, if you like, basil or oregano. The pieces of tomato are left chunky, and the texture of the finished sauce is fairly loose. Tomato sauce, on the other hand, is a more complex affair, starting with puréed tomatoes and seasoned with carrot, celery, and bay leaf, and left to simmer until thickened and rich in flavor."
Now that we have defined our terms, let the jarred-pasta-sauce battle begin. Lidia's Flavors of Italy Marinara Sauce ($6.19 for 26 ounces in my local market in New York City) is chunky, thin, and has just a touch of heat. The ingredient list on the bottle is almost identical to the ingredient list for Lidia's marinara sauce recipe in her cookbook. The jarred sauce has honey in it, the recipe in the book has no sweetener at all. The jarred marinara sauce was almost more like a salsa than what we Americans think of as a pasta sauce. It was good and adhered to the pasta well, but I wanted it to be thicker and more intensely flavored.
Emeril's Home Style Marinara Sauce (a much cheaper $3.59 for 25 ounces) had ingredients listed that I normally associate with commercial sauces: corn syrup, soybean oil, high-fructose corn syrup, dried onions, granulated garlic. None of these ingredients were found in the basic tomato sauce recipe I found on emerils.com. It looked much more like cheap jarred pasta sauce (like Prego or Paul Newman's Newman's Own) and unfortunately shared many of those sauces' less desirable characteristics: It was way too sweet and thin. Emeril's marinara sauce was a lightweight. It belonged in a different class. Next time it will compete with Prego and Paul Newman.
Then there was Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce. Its listed ingredients - imported Italian tomatoes, imported (from where?) olive oil, fresh onions, salt, fresh garlic, fresh basil, black pepper, oregano - faithfully coincided with the ingredients listed in Rao's Cookbook. It is a luxuriantly thick sauce, well-balanced, with a complex tomato flavor that I associate with traditional Italian-American restaurants all over America. Rao's marinara sauce does not fit into Lidia's definition. It is thick and much less chunky. As Frank Pellegrino writes in the book, "Each morning Annie Sausto makes a huge pot of fresh sauce to get us through that night's service." The cooking time is at least an hour, as opposed to the 30-minute cooking time of the other sauce recipes mentioned above. Rao's has outclassed the competition.
The winner by technical knockout in the first round is Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce.
If you're looking for a celebrity chef's basic tomato sauce to make at home, try Mario Batali's. The carrots he puts in lend the sauce a natural sweetness that is just right.
The recipe for Rao's marinara sauce follows. Visit Serious Eats for Lidia's Marinara Sauce recipe.
RAO'S MARINARA SAUCE
- makes about 7 cups -
Ingredients
2 twenty-eight ounce cans Italian plum tomatoes with basil (preferable those labeled 'San Marzano')
1/4 cup fine-quality olive oil
2 ounces fatback or salt pork (optional)
3 tablespoons minced onion
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
Salt and pepper to taste
6 leaves fresh basil, torn (optional)
Pinch dried oregano
Procedure
1. Remove tomatoes from the can,, reserving the juice in which they are packed. Using your hands, crush the tomatoes, gently remove and discard the hard core from the stem end, and remove and discard any skin and tough membrane. Set aside.
2. Put oil in a large, nonreactive saucepan over medium-low heat. If using fatback, cut it into small pieces and add to the pan. Saute for about 5 minutes or until all fat has been rendered. Remove and discard fatback.
3. Then add onion. Saute for 3 minutes or until translucent and just beginning to brown. Stir in garlic and sauté for 30 seconds or until just softened (see Note). Stir in tomatoes, reserved juice, and salt. Raise heat, and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce heat to a very low simmer and cook for about 1 hour or until flavors have combined and sauce is slightly thickened. (If you prefer a thicker sauce, cook for an additional 15 minutes.
4. Stir in basil, oregano, and pepper, and cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and serve.
Note: Take care when adding garlic to hot oil, as it will burn and turn bitter very quickly. If this happens, discard oil and vegetables and start again. We never have sauce left over; however, if you do store it, tightly covered and refrigerated, for a day or two or freeze for up to 3 months.
409 Comments
LEAVE YOUR COMMENT
You must sign in to leave a comment