Cooked vs Uncooked pizza sauce....

[wotavidone]

I usually go for UNcooked sauce.

Is it true that cooking a sauce "cooks away the acidity" and thus makes the sauce sweeter?  I just read along those lines in another thread.

Personally I think some organics are lost when the sauce boils, sort of like steam distillation.
Whether this includes the acid forming compounds I don't know, but the taste changes, and you can smell it cooking, which is all the proof needed that flavour compounds are being driven off.
Whether that is good or bad is pretty much a personal preference thing.

[RHawthorne]

Personally I think some organics are lost when the sauce boils, sort of like steam distillation.
Whether this includes the acid forming compounds I don't know, but the taste changes, and you can smell it cooking, which is all the proof needed that flavour compounds are being driven off.
Whether that is good or bad is pretty much a personal preference thing.

I think volatile aromatics are being driven off as well. This happens with lots of things when they're cooked, or overcooked. I hear phrases like "cooking brings out the flavor" of something thrown around all the time, and I think it's widely overused. Some things improve from thorough cooking, and others are degraded. Tomatoes are a great example of that. Roasting whole tomatoes can make them taste delicious, but go just an inch over the line, and they're totally ruined.

[norma427]

I tried baked sauces, with different tomato products.  This is about where I started.  Kinda a long thread, but I really likes the baked pizza sauces, with added ingredients. My customers that tried those baked sauces also like them. The reason I didn't offer the baked sauces all of the time, was it was too time consuming for my small pizza stand. 

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=45149.msg452056#msg452056

Also really didn't recall before, but I was trying to make some grandma pizza's on that thread.  It is something, that the mind can forget so quickly.   

Norma

[RHawthorne]

I tried baked sauces, with different tomato products.  This is about where I started.  Kinda a long thread, but I really likes the baked pizza sauces, with added ingredients. My customers that tried those baked sauces also like them. The reason I didn't offer the baked sauces all of the time, was it was too time consuming for my small pizza stand. 

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=45149.msg452056#msg452056

Also really didn't recall before, but I was trying to make some grandma pizza's on that thread.  It is something, that the mind can forget so quickly.   

Norma

I'll bet those baked sauces were great. My next sauce experiment is to combine some oven roasted fresh tomatoes with passata. I've got a 24 oz. jar, and I'm thinking about 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes should be about the right amount to roast and blend them and combine them with the passata. I'm looking for a sauce with a good balance of sweet to savory flavor, and just the right texture that it's easy to pour on pizza and not have to stop and smooth it out.

[wotavidone]

My next sauce experiment is to combine some oven roasted fresh tomatoes with passata. I've got a 24 oz. jar, and I'm thinking about 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes should be about the right amount to roast and blend them and combine them with the passata.

Should be delicious.

[norma427]

Should be delicious.

Norma

[seattlesteve]

Hello,

Finally was able to make the Red November Sauce (#2). Great pizza sauce, nothing wrong with it that I can tell. Up until now of my pizza journey (which started Oct 2023) I've been using whatever random Rao's sauces were on sale, usually spending like $6-7 a jar

MY take-aways:

- Was able to get all the herbs except for Marjoram and Tarragon in the bulk section of my local WinCo for very little
- One VU = 0.16 gram
- My microwave only has one heat setting, high. So, I added enough water to make a dry paste, nuked it 15 seconds, took it out, stirred to cool it down, repeated a couple of times
- I used a 28oz can of Cento crushed tomatoes. They are rather sweet/tart, and with the added sugar, I was mildly concerned. Turned out to not be an issue.

Attached is a photo of the sauce on a pie. Has great color and texture.

Edit: OP has not been here since 2015, almost ten years, best of wishes, thanks to the forums for preserving the knowledge

[seattlesteve]

Second time making red november sauce. This time I actually bought a measuring set with a 1/8tsp spoon, making the process much easier.

This time put together the herbs in a small to go sauce container. Shook it up, wet it, and zapped it in the microwave on high for about 8 seconds, mixing/mashing the herbs 1/2 way thru.

The recipe advises letting it sit for 6 hours in the fridge, I found it tasty freshly mixed.

Note my first batch went bad when I was about half done with it - so this time, I'm going to freeze half of it.

[bojanm]

I've tried many variations, but at the end I just crush San Marzano tomatoes by hand (also removing some water from them first) then I add some basil and salt and leave it in the fridge overnight. I don't add olive oil since I think this ruins the flavor of tomatoes. I add olive oil on top of all the toppings just before I put my pizza into oven.