I gotta make a big messa spaghetti sauce in three weeks. Suggestions?

[struggle4progress]

We're gonna be serving mebbe 300 folk, and various different people will bring in pots of sauce

But from experience I expect a great diversity in the sauce brought: some will be rich and meaty, some will have some meat, and some will be minimalist -- a few supermarket cans of pinkish starchy tomato sauce dumped into pots and dropped off

It goes on hot pasta into serving trays that sit in a warming oven until they go onto the steam-table serving line

So I wanna come up with a big pot or two of something interesting enough to redeem whatever dreaded pink starchy stuff shows up ijn the kitchen

Consideration #1: it has to be nutritious
Consideration #2: it has to have real flavor
Consideration #2a: the flavor can't be overpowering, because the sauce might not be diluted
Consideration #2b: but there needs to be enough flavor, because the sauce is likely to be diluted in pink starchy stuff
Consideration #3: it would be great if it had some visual appeal, like texture and color

I've done this before, so I have some idea how to proceed, but I'm fishing for suggestions

Let me say first what sort of thing I'll do:

10 lbs of lean ground beef
mix in lots of oregano, sage, garlic and onion, plus some basil
form into thumbjoint-sized meatballs
pressure cook
cool
remove grease
save aspic for sauce
crumble the meatballs into smaller fragments

three to five yellow, red, orange, green bell peppers, diced or sliced
half to three quarters of a celery bunch, diced with all the celery leaf
two to three large onions diced
large bunch of cilantro, minced
gently saute veggies in large pot (or two large pots) in olive oil

add several industrial size cans of crushed and/or diced tomatos to veggies
(i generally use both crushed and diced, the crushed for background, the diced for texture)
add aspic
simmer gently
add the meat

towards the end
add one or two small cans of tomato sauce to thicken sauce and add color

Questions:
1. The meal includes cooked veggies, salad, and desert, but is there anything I can do to make the sauce more nutritious? I've tried spinach, but the appearance results aren't always good: green juice and red juice tend towards murky brown. I've tried shredded broccoli, but it's really easy to overcook such cabbage family ingredient
2. I'm thinking of adding a pound or two of sausage meatballs, to add flavor, but a lot of that may disappear as removed grease. Any other ideas about how to add flavor? Add a bit of shredded radish to the saute?
3. More color and texture might help. I'm thinking mebbe a few cups of cubed carrot, but it's not very imaginative

[Stinky The Clown]

1. As a carnivore married to a herbivore, I'd rethink the meat. Or at least make some meatless.

Can you mix all the donated sauces and then adjust the flavor?

[struggle4progress]

3. Sadly, the facilities are inadequate for us to offer a choice of entree: there just isn't room

on the line; and if 300 hungry people are queued to eat, there's no real way to ask each if they'd prefer and meatless sauce and wander back to the kitchen to prepare exceptional trays

Obviously, mixing the sauces and adjusting flavor would be preferable, but the schedule doesn't permit that either: we get the kitchen around 5 and start serving around 6, having had to prepare the salad and bread and desserts and pasta and veggies in that hour. We try to get folk to bring their sauce hot, to save time heating it, but there's no time to get any additional spice flavor into the sauces: there isn't really enough time to get any added spice damp in the sauce. We try to finesse this some by using a mix of different sauces in each steamtray of pasta, so that the streaks of different sauce colors, flavors, and textures are more likely to appear on every plate, leading to a more interesting meal -- but that's about the best we currently know how to do

[Gormy Cuss]

2. Wheatberries would add texture, nutrition.

I haven't used them in tomato sauce, only chili. They add texture without a nasty color effect.
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/soupsstewsandchili/r/Wheat-Berry-Chili.htm

In addition to peppers I'd use zucchini by the boatload. Saute it separately to sweat off the water then add to the sauce.

[struggle4progress]

8. Zucchini sounds like an excellent idea! I can get both texture and color from it!

[GoCubsGo]

4. Cilantro?

Do you mean oregano? Cilantro doesn't belong in spaghetti sauce. Try oregano, along with some basil and parsley (preferable the flat Italian kind), and some bay leaves (be sure to remove before serving). And, don't forget the garlic. A small amount of red chili flakes will give a nice zing to it. So would some fennel seed. If you add carrots, just grate them finely. Instead of using tomato sauce to thicken it, add some tomato paste. The flavor is more concentrated. You'll also want to add a TINY amount of sugar to cut the acidity, and some salt. It should be plenty nutritious with just the tomatoes. If you want to add spinach, use fresh, mince it finely like you would the parsley, and add it toward the end. Some dry red wine will also give it some great flavor.

[struggle4progress]

7. I get good results with cilantro. Of course, I'm making gallons of sauce, with pounds of meat,

and quite a few other flavors, and it cooks into everything. Bay leaf I always use: it's unnecessary to remove it if you crumble the dry leaf into small bits in your hand before adding it. Red pepper flakes I also almost always use, though it's important not to over do it: I generally mix different spices into different meatballs, so a certain fraction of the meatballs get the red pepper flakes. Dunno why I typed "tomato sauce" -- I think the stuff is dreadful, and what I do use is actually a few small cans of tomato paste. Sometimes I've added a small amount of cumin

Fennel I wouldn't have thought of, and I'll try it

I'll try the grated carrot, too: I'm guessing two or three loosely packed cups for ten to twelve pounds of meat

Fresh spinach might indeed work better than the frozen blocks I've tried in the past; I'll try that too, adding it right after I turn off the sauce at home to take it over to the kitchen

A lot of people have suggested some sugar, and I always forget it! I'll try to remember this time

I'll think about the wine: it might take a lot to make a difference with this much sauce

Thanks!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

24. I always use wine. I cringed at the cilantro too. Do you put egg and bread in meatballs? nt

[struggle4progress]

25. I only ever make meatballs as a way of cooking large quantities of meat, and then:

(1) they are thumbjoint-sized; (2) they contain only meat, spices, and perhaps some veggies; and (3) they get broken into smaller chunks and are cooked into the sauce for some hours before serving

Sorry you don't like cilantro

[Laura PourMeADrink]

27. actually like cilantro - just not Italian - of course, if you are shooting for Italian.

Like the flavor that egg/bread gives to the meat. Good idea - guess it would be easier than trying to brown large quantities of meat.

good luck !

[Warpy]

5. Since it's going to be mixed with rubbishy stuff right out of a jar

I'd strongly suggest you do a basic red sauce with lots of tomato paste, garlic, and chunky stuff like mushrooms, onions, celery, and whatever you have kicking around you want to get rid of. Season heavily with either basil or oregano and make sure you don't eat it straight because it should be overseasoned.

The real problem (other than blandness) with the stuff out of the jars is that it has nothing in it to give it a little texture. Even canned stems & pieces mushrooms do it a big favor. Still, it all needs flavoring and that means onions, garlic, tomato paste, and lots of basil or oregano.

That's what I'd do, anyway.

[struggle4progress]

9. I love mushrooms, and I think they'd add a lot to this. But everytime we serve this spaghetti dinner

a bunch of folk say, without fail, "It doesn't have mushrooms in it, does it? I can't stand mushrooms!" so I've resigned myself to the idea that I'm never ever putting mushrooms into the spaghetti I serve there

[Warpy]

10. Yeah, people are nuts. I'd just tell them to pick out the mushies

knowing the flavor had gone into the sauce. Usually people who say they hate mushrooms like the flavor and hate the texture.

It's either that or chopping them finely enough that you can't tell what they are.

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. Agreed.

Finely minced and cooked in, you never know they are there.
Quickest way to do that is in a food processor, yeah?

[Warpy]

14. That's what I've done when mushroom whiners were coming to dinner

They raved about the sauce and never knew the difference.

[struggle4progress]

13. Yes, that's quite true in my experience. Maybe I should reduce a package of shrooms to tiny crumbs

in my food processor, add em, and then forget to tell anybody

[Jenoch]

34. I have not read all of the posts,

but I would skip the cilantro. To a lot of people, me included, it tastes like soap. Start your sauce with a lot of onions, celery, and carrots (mirepoix). The easiest way to do this is to put them into a food processor. Saute the mirepoix long enough for it to get browned. Then saute more chopped onions and garlic and then add several cans of tomato paste before adding the ground beef. Add your tomatoes, herbs, and stir enough for the meat to break up. I'd skip the meatball thing.

[struggle4progress]

35. It just takes too long to do 10 or 15 lbs of meat on the stove top, and it's too big a mess.

I've tried browning some in the broiler, but a whole lot of grease comes out and it can make a pretty big mess, too. So the many-meatballs-in-pressure cooker is for me a reasonable way to get all the meat cooked, while allowing much of the grease to run off

The whole batch of sauce takes me two or three days to whip up and cook down, so the tomato paste can't be added until later: otherwise the sauce gets too thick too soon and I risk scorching the bottom

I'm hearing objections to cilantro in this thread, so I guess some folk really don't like it -- but there isn't that much in the sauce, considering there are gallons and gallons of end product, and it gets mixed with other folks sauces in the course of preparing the steam trays for the serving line. The trick IMO is to produce a dish that does NOT have a uniform flavor: if one bite is a wee bit too garlicky, and the next bite is a bit acid, and the third bite is a bit bland, then the net impression is more likely to be that the food was interesting and tasty. The crowd's tough to please: they'll toss food they dislike, so I monitor garbage pails to see how its going over. This stuff isn't getting tossed, and in fact our experience in the last year or so is that diners are coming back to say they wish we cooked for them every night -- a compliment they generally won't provide

I really like the idea of caramelizing some mirepoix, because that would be easy to do and would provide some little bits of cvariety in the flavor here and there

[Jenoch]

41. I think the pressure

cooker is a good idea. I'd just skip the time consuming meatball making and go with a straight bolognaise. I don't think cilantro is often used in Italian cooking but I might be mistaken.

What I have found interesting about this kind of cooking is that the only difference between a big kettle of chili and a vig kettle of spaghetti sauce is the seasonings and the beans, if using.

[struggle4progress]

42. I don't have a large enough pressure cooker to do all the sauce easily

It may end up being nearly 7 gallons of sauce. I really need the meat sterile: no mutant e.coli, no pork parasites, &c&c. And 13 pounds of meat (say) is a whole lot to try to cook: it probably takes two pressure cookers just to do the meat

The meatballs don't need to be nicely formed, cuz I'm gonna crumble them: it's just a strategy that enables me to work some spice into the meat, stack the meat into loose cannonball layers that steam can flow thru; then I can drain them and discard the grease while retaining the non-greasy liquid

While the meat cooks, I can work on veggie chopping. Then I can simmer everything gently together for a few hours

[Jenoch]

43. If you are really cooking that much sauce

a 4 or 6 quart pressure cooker is going to slow you down rather than speed you up. Seven gallons is 28 quarts. I have a 12 quart kettle in the kitchen. That's three batches. (You don't want to go more than 11 quarts in the 12 quart kettle.)

We also have a 32 quart kettle that could be used on an electric coil stove. (It's too heavy for our smooth top ceramic stove top). Or, it can be used on an outdoor propane burner. We use it for lobster/shrimp boils. I also use it to make mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. (I have to cook mashed potatoes for 50.)

Again, my point is that there is really no need for the extra step of forming meatballs. That won't get any more flavor into them. The steam will go through the meat just fine as long as you mush it up some with a big potato masher.

[BillyJack]

6. It sounds like you have "totally got this" already

I think it's really cool (and as it should be) that you want the absolute very best culinary experience for your diners....in terms of taste, texture, visual appeal, and nutrition.

You've got all this "unknown" sauce coming into the mix....

I'm so glad you care, but think that you are <<<<stressing>>>>> waaaaay too much about it. It's one meal....that the folks you are serving will truly enjoy, b/c you cared so much to make it "good". I think 've got it totally figured out how to make the best of this mix!

And to your item #3:
" More color and texture might help. I'm thinking mebbe a few cups of cubed carrot, but it's not very imaginative"

No worries about "imaginative". You said you wanted good tasting & NUTRITIOUS. So put in the cubed carrots (and some cubed celery or zucchini?). Sounds like whomever you are serving won't fault you for not being "imaginative".

Good luck/karma & *hugs*. Let us know how it all worked out!

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. I agree with GoCubsGo, but not sure how this will work, based on what you said.....wine.

Add some Chianti to the sauce. Again, not sure how that would work for you, because as you said, "various different people will bring in pots of sauce".

Is there any way you can get the people to bring the sauces in just a bit earlier and put it all together? If so, adding a full bottle of Chianti (or any nice, dry red) for each 2 or 3 gallons of sauce will add color and probably stabilize the flavor, but you need some time for the alcohol to burn off a bit and for it to do its magic.

Also, consider adding ground pork to your meatballs. Pork does wonderful things for tomato based pasta sauce.


Either way, you have my respect. You have quite the task ahead of you.

[struggle4progress]

15. OK. This is a bit dicey. Wine really does add good flavor. But if I use it:

(1) I have to use at least a whole bottle of it, and maybe more, to have any effect on the flavor
and
(2) There must be no obvious indication I used it, and in particular there must be no easily discernible trace of alcohol odor or flavor left

In particular, I have to add the wine while I cooking at home, and the sauce has to cook long enough afterwards to lose any evident alcohol aroma. I'm simply not free to dump a bottle of wine into the sauce in the kitchen forty-five minutes before serving time

Let me now explain why. We're doing this at a site that offers a number of social services, including drug and alcohol rehab. And a certain fraction (by no means all of them) of the diners are in, or have been in, such rehab services. I don't ever even mention drugs or alcohol down there, because some of the folk have sometimes had lives that revolved entirely around drugs or alcohol, and they're trying to recreate lives without that stuff. I think wine can be added to the sauce to improve it, and I have actually in the past sometimes done that: there's certainly not going to be enough wine in anybody's sauce to have the slightest physiological effect. But if there's enough of an identifiable wine savor to the sauce, I don't know what the psychological effect will be on the rehab gang, and I'm not trying to help someone fall off the wagon. So when I have added wine, hoping the underlying flavors add richness to the sauce, I have then handled the sauce to eliminate anything that might suggest to anybody "there's wine in this sauce" -- but it's a bit of a bother doing that: I might (say) dump the wine into a large pressure cooker, fill the thing with meat sauce, pressure cook it a while to drive any obvious alcohol odor away, then add that sauce back into the rest of the sauce

So I have to decide if the improvement its worth the trouble

[A HERETIC I AM]

16. It probably isn't then.

You are absolutely correct in needing time for it to cook out.

If you are feeding the group you suggest, I imagine it is best to just avoid it if you don't have the extra hour to be sure the wine cooks down.


Again, you have my respect. Big task feeding that many people, to be sure.

[struggle4progress]

17. I appreciate you taking the time to offer suggestions!

[TreasonousBastard]

18. Cinnamon is a secret ingredient in red sauces, soups....

and such stuff to perk it up. I have no idea how much to use in that river of sauce, but I'd think maybe a half teaspoon a gallon to start-- you don't really want to taste the cinnamon, just let it work on the other flavors.

Your original plan is good as are the other ideas in here, so you should have a great sauce.

BTW, the alcohol never cooks completely out when you add wine. It reduces to a very tiny amount, but why take an unnecessary chance? Save the wine for smaller dinners.

One other thought. Might be kinda weird with pasta, but I add garbanzos and black beans to a lot of things. You've already got peppers chopped up in there, so why not?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

28. yes. cinnamon. I have used it before - just a pinch is enough. I had always thought it was used

for a Greek version of spaghetti sauce.

[TreasonousBastard]

29. Could be, but I got the idea from an Italian girlfriend's mother.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

30. really? Well, guess I was wrong. Adding it back in ! thanks

[littlemissmartypants]

19. In mine

I use olives green or black, not too many though. They add good fat and color.
Love, Peace and Shelter. lmsp

[locks]

20. nutritious beans

Have you tried cannellini beans?

[cbayer]

21. Sweet italian sausage for some of the meat.

Remove from casings and cook with the other meat. You get a more distinctive taste, particularly the fennel.

Carrots are a good addition, but I always think of this kind of sauce as pretty nutritious to begin with.

I wouldn't do the meatballs, because I just like the meat cooked in. I would brown and degrease on the stovetop after sautéing the other veggies.

[guardian]

22. Add

raw whole potato to absorb acidity. Add raw whole carrot to add natural sweetness. Remove the whole potato/carrot prior to serving. You are making a huge batch. So I don't know how that scales up.

[grasswire]

23. what about a topping they can sprinkle on, to their own taste?

Instead of trying to heighten the sauces (difficult), how about making a crumb and cheesy sprinkle that diners can choose to add at table?

Can be toasted bread crumbs made from stale bread, with some inexpensive grated parm, minced parsley or parsley flakes, Italian seasoning, a little dried red pepper flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, etc. A spicy crumb topping.

[MiddleFingerMom]

26. I think the bell peppers would add color and "nutrition", but some foods...

.
.
.
... perhaps specifically pasta sauces (be they red- or clam- or Alfredo-based, etc) shouldn't be mucked up
with too much focus on nutrition. You'll have cooked veggies and salad on the side -- go for healthy but
simply enjoyable with the pasta.
.
.
.
BTW, I love cilantro... but not in spaghetti sauce.
.
.
.
A light touch with cayenne pepper can give a nice spicy bite at the last minute to an already-cooked sauce.
.
.
.

[jambo101]

31. Most important step is to

pre cook any hamburger meat and drain the fat off before adding to the sauce, failure to do this step will have your sauce exhibiting an un appetizing inch of golden grease floating on the top of your spaghetti sauce..basically rendering it inedible.
Not sure what tomatoes you are buying that come out pink but bulk cans of diced tomatoes at the supermarket will be red,add some oregano and basil along with the meat then a few cans of tomato sauce and a can of tomato puree and you should have a fairly good looking meat sauce for your spaghetti..
Hold off on putting salt in the sauce till the very end or you may end up with a sauce that is terminally too salty..
I usually try to keep it simple and basically follow the ingredient list in this recipe.
http://thinnerandwiser.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/frugal-recipe-of-the-week-meat-sauce-for-pasta/

[struggle4progress]

32. Cheap "tomato sauce" tends to be starchy and pink. I don't use it, myself, because

I don't like the color and it's very difficult to reheat a big pot of it without scorching it on the bottom, ruining the flavor. I get better results with a mixture of crushed and diced bulk cans of tomato. But I simply can't control what others will bring in to serve on the line: so I need to make a sauce that can redeem somebody else's starchy pink offer, and preferably a sauce that may cover a bit of scorched flavor if somebody brings in something slightly scorched. I generally add small can or two of tomato puree or paste at the end

Many thanks for the recipe!

[struggle4progress]

33. The doing as it occurs

Last edited Sat Mar 30, 2013, 10:45 PM - Edit history (5)

Picked up so far:

3 lb cased mild italian sausage with fennel
10 lb lean ground beef

cheap 750 ml bottle merlot

2 food-service size cans crushed tomato
2 food-service size cans diced tomato
2 small can tomato paste

1.5 lb whole mushroom
Celery
Cilantro
Green onions (bunch or two)
Red, green, yellow, orange bell peppers
Carrots

salt
Bay leaf
Fennell
Sage

Need:

Zuccini

On hand:

Olive oil

Garlic
Onion

Basil (don't over do this!)
Cinnamon
Cumin
Garlic powder
Marjoram
Onion powder
Oregano
Red pepper flake
Thyme

Have ten pounds of ground beef made into meatballs pressure cooking now. They've been mixed with different flavors: some have chopped green onion or celery, some have sage, some have rosemary, some have oregano, some have dried onion flake or garlic. They're pretty much done now, so I have to drain them, lose the grease, and retain the broth. They'll be broken up for the sauce.

Now working on the sausage: made a puree of green onion, celery, and mushroom; cooked it down a bit; decased some sausage; worked in the puree, with a bit of fennel; and am browning small patties under a low broiler. These will be broken up, like the meatballs, for the sauce. Finished with about half of the sausage now.

All the meat has now been cooked as meatballs, chilled, then sliced with the food processor. A mix of green onions, mushrooms, celery, and carrots have been crumbled and sauteed;and the sauteed veggie crumb and sliced meatballs are simmering gently in a large pot of broth, with sliced peppers and white onions, with some additional spicing

The next stage involves splitting this into two pots and adding crushed/diced tomato

[pinto]

36. Sliced sausage goes a long way for flavor.

And I always put in my two cents for some cinnamon.

[struggle4progress]

37. I bought three pounds of sausage today, though I think I'll actually remove it

from its casings and handle it somewhat like the beef. A bit of it may get browned. The rest will probably get mixed with spices, made into small meatballs, pressured cooked to ensure its well-cooked and de-greased, then crumbled when cold and cooked into the sauce

Upthread there's a cheering section for cinnamon, so I'll try adding some

[pinto]

38. Sounds great. (aside) Go easy on the cinnamon till you have a taste of the simmer.

I am a great fan, though.

[struggle4progress]

39. I sometimes add various other warm spices that are very easy to overdo and that would ruin

the sauce if overdone: a bare trace of clove or ginger, for example, can help in a large batch of sauce, but too much of either will be a catastrophe, so I think I know what you mean when you say "go easy"

[BainsBane]

40. I keep it fairly basic

onions, garlic, oregano, basil, bay leaf, salt and pepper. I use grass-fed ground beef, occasionally Italian sausage, and ideally Muir Glen canned tomatoes. IMO, adding a lot of additional spices will muddy the flavor. It you want a flavorful vegetarian sauce, add some fresh basil near the end of cooking.

I strongly disagree with the person who said don't add salt until the end. You need to salt each component (onions, meat) as it's cooking. Just watch how much you add. Most home cooks don't season enough, chefs commonly point out.

[jambo101]

44. i'd keep it simple

I;d avoid overspicing your meat sauce with
Cinnamon
Cumin
clove
Garlic powder
Marjoram
Onion powder
As it will tend to overpower a basic meat sauce/Bolognese.
Salting a family diner for 4 is a natural, salting a pot of sauce for several hundred i'd take a lot of care as to how much salt you put in as too much and the whole pot is ruined.
PS Add some bacon or Panchetta to give a bit of a smokey undertaste.