Chicago tavern style sweet sauce

[chefdad]

Any good sweet sauce recipes out there like Palermos on 63rd smaller scale recipes looking forward to hearing from you! Thanks John.

[Garvey]

ATK put out a recipe that’s looks like a generic sweet sauce that could be a good jumping off point:
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=59240.0

Palermo’s, though, is a whole other ballgame.  I’ve only had it once and I’m stumped.  My best guess is that it’s that rare beast: a cooked sauce.

[tjr]

Search up Palermo's in the search bar and you'll find the hunt for their sweet sauce has been going on since 2005. Seems to be 3 general schools of thought:
1. Add a small amount of cinnamon and a moderate amount of sugar.
2. Grape jelly.
3. Add some Carlo Rossi Paisano (cheap sweet red wine like lambrusco). 2 Tbsp per cup of sauce. I assume you'd then cook the sauce a little.

Don't know about Palermo's but the ATK recipe sounds pretty good. I'd use bottled passata instead of "tomato sauce". I always have that in the fridge, goes good with almost everything. Add a little red pepper flakes for a touch of heat and taste to see if it needs a little more sugar. It might. Could always use that as a starting point and experiment with cinnamon and/or Paisano.

[Garvey]

I didn't detect any cinnamon when I had Palermo's and my friend who grew up on it never mentioned that, either.  Cinnamon is a very detectable flavor, even in small amounts, and often very polarizing (cf. Cincinnati chili).  But it could be true.

I guess when I think of Palermo's and how old school it is, I feel like suggesting an Italian cook adding grape jelly to a sauce would get you a rolling pin across the back of your head. 

[Old Red]

I guess when I think of Palermo's and how old school it is, I feel like suggesting an Italian cook adding grape jelly to a sauce would get you a rolling pin across the back of your head. 

I chuckled when I read this but then I got to thinking about where I grew up, Watkins Glen, NY. The village has had a large Italian population that was originally brought in to work the salt plants and is surrounded by grape vineyards. Welch's Grape opened their, since gone, grape processing plant in the late 1800's. Who knows what got thrown in the pot?

[tjr]

The village has had a large Italian population...

Those Italians may have made Paisano-style wine from all those grapes, too, and whatever wasn't good enough to drink went into the pot. That's how it worked with home winemaking when I was a kid.

[Garvey]

Leftover grapes went into the tomato sauce pot?

Sorry, but that's still not the same thing as grape jelly, which is processed and contains other ingredients.

[chefdad]

Ya i never detected cinnamon i grew up close on 51st and maplewood so I've had this pizza quite often along with Chesdans King pizza which has a very similar sauce.

[chefdad]

Definitely tomato paste forward.

[scott r]

Chefdad has it right

Get yourself a good paste like product....  One of the Bontas from Escalon, full red or saproito pizza sauce from Stanislaus.  They all end up tasting very similar.....   You will be surprised at how good one of these paste like products is when watered down a bit till you get the thickness your looking for.  Add a little salt and sugar.   Spice as you see fit or add some olive oil. These products are already a little sweet, but once you hit them with white sugar your at tavern style.

No need to cook, done deal, thank me later

[PizzaGarage]

The common sauce used by the old school tavern places is usually a combination 50/50 of purée and pizza sauce.  Traditional add in ingredients are : salt, sugar, black pepper, dried oregano, dried basil and most use a garlic powder.

Stanislaus is mostly the default mixing Full Red pizza sauce ( with or without basil) and Full Red tomato purée.  In most cases  water is added to get the right consistency, the sauces when used the next day get more water added due to the mixture becoming gelatinous due to heavy amounts of dried oregano and basil.  The sweeter sauce is created by adding sugar and / or using Stanislaus Super Dolce instead of the Full Red pizza sauce.  Super Dolce can be used alone as well and it’s quite sweet.

They pretty much taste the same and I put Palermo’s in the same category.  I didn’t think it was exceptionally sweet but only been there once to try it out.  I think it’s a classic mix of sauce, purée, water and the ingredients listed above, but I do not recall pepper.

[Bozo Miller]

Search up Palermo's in the search bar and you'll find the hunt for their sweet sauce has been going on since 2005. Seems to be 3 general schools of thought:
1. Add a small amount of cinnamon and a moderate amount of sugar.
2. Grape jelly.
3. Add some Carlo Rossi Paisano (cheap sweet red wine like lambrusco). 2 Tbsp per cup of sauce. I assume you'd then cook the sauce a little.

Don't know about Palermo's but the ATK recipe sounds pretty good. I'd use bottled passata instead of "tomato sauce". I always have that in the fridge, goes good with almost everything. Add a little red pepper flakes for a touch of heat and taste to see if it needs a little more sugar. It might. Could always use that as a starting point and experiment with cinnamon and/or Paisano.

    I do know that some of the best BBQ sauce I ever tasted contained grape jelly.

[chefdad]

I'm thinking there's olive oil added to the sauce also what do you think?