Mama's Two-Day Red Sauce

What is that wonderful aroma resonating from the kitchen? It has to be my favorite dish, red sauce made for linguini, spaghetti, lasagna, and fresh garlic bread to be dipped in it. The secret is the cooking time, and since there has been more time than needed during this quarantine, it was a good time to revisit the recipe and enjoy a traditional Italian dinner with my family.

I had most of the ingredients I needed to create the sauce, but we did have to go to the store to get the secret ingredients; celery, carrots, and onion. I ordered these ingredients online and picked them up at Walmart, and then came home to begin the process. The first thing to be done was to take the celery and peel the outside with a potato peeler to get the strings off it. After that the carrots had to be scrubbed until the skin on the carrots was gone, and finally came the onion. After scrubbing the veggies they need to be chopped very fine, and then put in a large pan of water to simmer down. This creates a rue that makes almost any dish taste so much better. I learned to make the rue from a good friend and excellent chef years after I started making sauce.

The next step is cooking the meat. I always add some sausage to my hamburger when cooking spaghetti sauce. This is where you can be creative. If you like a sauce that is a little spicy, use a spicy sausage to add to the hamburger. While browning the meat, I add chopped onion and chopped green pepper to it so they begin to cook a bit as well. I also add minced garlic from the jar, or I peel and dice fresh garlic. It comes out great either way, depending on the time you wish to take. As I simmer the meat, I slice mushrooms and braise them in a little olive oil and butter with a dash of garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian seasoning. Once they brown, I add them to the meat mixture and stir.

Once the meat is cooked and the peppers and onions are soft, I add the meat to the rue I prepared earlier. Next, I add a couple cans of tomato paste, and a can of water for each can of paste. I stir this around, and then add two cans of stewed Italian tomatoes (If you are making a smaller amount of sauce, then only use one can of tomatoes and one can of tomato paste and water). I put this on the back of the stove to simmer as I continue to add ingredients. I add a beef neck bone to the sauce because the marrow in the bone adds great taste. Next, I add a generous amount of Italian seasoning, garlic powder and onion powder, and then stir the sauce to blend the seasonings. The final ingredient is a bay leaf. The sauce usually cooks for a few days. I put it in a crock pot after adding all the ingredients, and then leave it on low all night, all the next day, and all the next night as well, stirring often to see if you need to add more water. If the sauce seems very thick, I would add a cup of water and stir, and then check it again in thirty (30) minutes and repeat if needed.

I learned to make this sauce from my Italian boyfriend's mother, Maria. He left me at their house one day and she was making her "red sauce", as she called it. I watched and I learned how to do it, with some extra instruction from Maria about throwing in leftover chicken or beef from the refrigerator. I also learned a few things about seasoning from my boyfriend. My father-in -law was also Italian, and he told me to put pepperoni in the sauce for extra zing. The rue I mentioned earlier added a great deal of taste to the sauce. My friend and manager at the Nissan dealership I worked at said he took fresh tomatoes and peeled them to make sauce. I have never tried it, so I don't know whether to recommend it or not. The truth is, everybody has their own recipe for red sauce, and I am sure they are all good. This is just one of my favorites and many other people's as well!

Don't forget the Parmesan cheese that goes on top! I like to buy a block of fresh Parmesan cheese and grate it. It adds something special to the taste. And, don't forget the garlic bread.

Bona petite!