Please help me I am at a loss.......Ny Style Pizza Sauce

[Brutal_Pizza]

Now I've tried many different ways but I can't seem to end up with that taste you get when you bite into a NY Style slice of pizza.....I know its the sauce ....it doesn't have that certain tomato taste...I wonder if I'm over complicating my sauce....any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[scott123]

Brutal_Pizza, in order to achieve a 'tomato taste,' you need to start off with flavorful tomatoes and you need to keep the other ingredients to a minimum. More is not better- both from a perspective of amount of ingredients and number of them.

What's your current recipe?

What tomatoes are you using?

[gabaghool]

Brutal

For one thing, its a RAW product.  Well, the canned tomatos are opened, but not cooked again.

The above poster was right.  The canned tomato is 95% of the battle.  Your amounts of other ingrediants are next in line of importance.

In NY, they use all or some of these ingrediants.  Experiment and have fun.

1.  Get your hands on "Stanislaus" brand tomatoes.  Don't think they are retail.  If you can't find them, try others until you find FIRM whole peeled tomatos. 

2. You can add salt and sugar (don't be put off by sugar.  Many, Many italian moms use sugar when using canned tomatos...its NO sin. 

3. EVOO.  Enriches the sauce.

4. Basil, fresh.  The leaf in the can is NOT sufficient.

5.  Black pepper.  Now, where my mom grew up in Italy, black pepper is not used very often.  It is used in pizza sauce, however.  But, ONLY in pizza sauce.

5. A word about oregano.  Another herb NEVER used in tomato sauce UNLESS it is used in pizzaiolo sauce or actual pizza sauce.  But, dont put it IN the sauce.  Sprinkle it on when you bake it or after you bake it, somehow,it changes flavor if it sits int the acid of the tomatoes to long.

Again, not all places use all of these.  Some only open a great can of tomatoes and uses that......Naples is famous for doing that.  But, don't be afraid of making it taste the way YOU like it.

Good luck!!

[dmcavanagh]

The honest truth is that just about all pizza places are using some type of canned sauce, they just don't have the time or talent to make their own, so the sauce you are trying to copy or create can most likely be bought in a can. Stanislaus and Escalon brands are probably the most popular ones available to the industry.

[Tscarborough]

I have never had a NY pizza, but I have been told that this one I make tastes like it:

The big can of whole peeled tomatoes, Italian type with basil, but grown and packed in the US, maybe 28oz?
About 1/2 as much fresh seeded and chopped garden tomatoes (2-3 tomatoes)
3 or 4 large leaves of bruised and chopped garden basil
2 to 4 large cloves of fresh garlic smashed
A good shake of coarse black pepper
Turbino sugar to taste (to remove the acid flavor, usually no more than a couple teaspoons)
Sea salt to remove some of the sugar sweetness, usually less than a tablespoon.
Depending upon the flavor as I cook it, I sometimes add a clove or two finely crushed.
I don't really use a recipe, I cook to taste, sorry for not being able to be more exact.

I cook it to a boil and mash it up with a wire masher, then remove excess water while cooling to room temp before I use it.  That normally gives me about 6 11" pies worth of sauce, but I am not shy with the sauce.

[chickenparm]

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10910.0.html


That thread is a very good place to start a simple NY style sauce! I have seen NY pizza shops use sauce straight from the can,but some are diluted with a little water to reduce it if it is too thick.

You really cannot go wrong with Stanislaus,San Marzano or others that are just about ready to spread onto a crust,with a little salt,some seasoning if required etc.I kept trying to make my own sauce and ended up wasting time,money and etc.

I got the best simple recipes from here and Jeff V,that said to salt and taste.The sauce will cook on the pizza and give ya the tomatoey taste you are looking for,without it tasting like tomato soup.