Tomato Gravy

[hippywife]

Okay..okay! I know I've said I didn't get the whole thing of calling tomato sauce "gravy" and I really still don't when it's referring to everyday spaghetti sauce. But last night I think I actually made something that could only be called "gravy."

I've posted this recipe for Italian Pot Roast before but I made it with a few changes:
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/004316italian_pot_roast.php

I didn't use the celery or the sage. I didn't have any, nor did I really want it for what I had planned. I made the rest of the recipe according to instructions, except that when I had it all assembled and brought the whole thing to a boil, I moved it from the dutch oven to the crockpot and set it on low for the night.

Just before 2a, I got up and pulled the meat (chuck roast) out of the pot. It was so incredibly tender it was falling apart. Any longer and we would have been having shredded beef sandwiches tonight instead. I was able to pull the gristle out of it completely.

I turned off the crockpot and while all the juices were still nice and piping hot, I stirred in two small cans of tomato paste. OMG! It really is a thick and tasty tomato gravy. This is going to be so awesome over pasta with this roast tonight.

[The empressof all]

1. Sounds great. I'm a real fan of the "Gravy"

I make a killer gravy myself. Takes hours but well worth the effort. I use at minimum 5 meats...sometimes more. Plus the variety of meals you can make out of that day of cooking is endless. And...it freezes well.

[hippywife]

2. I do love my own tomato sauce

and have been known to start it with stew beef, Italian sausage, and thick slices of stick pepperoni but this is a whole 'nother thing. It's slightly sweet from the carrots, bold from the wine, and really so beefy tasting it reminds me of the flavor of my gran's sauce when she used to start it with only great big beef neck bones. :9

You gotta try this recipe, gal. It's really unbelievable! :hi:

[The empressof all]

3. It's pretty much how I make Pot roast.

SO isn't a big pot roast fan so I don't make it that often. I use tomato paste and far more garlic/ He does like the gravy though. I make it with braciolle, sausage (both kinds), meatballs (made with pork and beef), pancetta, pork chops and chicken broth. The trick with the gravy and the pot roast is to brown your paste. I usually put the paste in after I brown the meat (I do take out most of the grease) and use the paste to start to de glaze the pan. This totally changes the taste of the paste and gives your end product a deeper richer taste. You know it's done when you see the paste change color and then you add your wine and keep scraping up the brown bits. The other thing the kid and SO Love with the gravy are bread crumb balls (I know go figure) I mix just the Progresso Bread Crumbs with egg and Parm, make little balls and fry them up. They snack on these while the gravy is cooking and sneak tastes by dipping the bread crumb balls in the cooking gravy. What we do for love! :crazy:

[hippywife]

4. Ah! Browning the paste!

I didn't even think of that. Next time for sure. Thanx, lady! :hug:

Dipping bread in the sauce while it's cooking is a long tradition in our family. :9 Never did the bread crumb balls, tho. I don't use bread crumbs often, even in my meatballs, I use more parm cheese than bread crumbs.

All my cooking is for love. ;)

[Stinky The Clown]

5. "All my cooking is for love. ;)"

So true ... so true!

[hippywife]

6. ...

:hug:

[hippywife]

7. One thing in the instructions I didn't do

is to strain the tomatoes to get the seeds out. I don't care if there are seeds and in the end it makes no difference. They are not in evidence through the sauce, really.

And I cut the carrots pretty small so they virtually cooked away into the sauce.

[hippywife]

8. I am so forgetful when I'm improvising in the kitchen.

I also added about a TBS. of fennel seed in with the herbs.

[hippywife]

9. OMG!

I hate to keep kicking this up and I don't mean to but I just have to tell you that this was as incredible as I could have hoped. It tasted just like my gran's sauce from long, long ago. Memories on a plate. I just can't get over how awesome it turned out.

:9

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Those moments are very special, indeed.

I'm glad you had one of your own. Keep trying for more.


:hug:

[hippywife]

11. The thing about this memory is how very old it is.

My grandmother passed away 14 years ago. Ten years before that, she started experiencing heart failure and totally changed the way she cooked. So the sauce I've been making, which is just like hers, was from that last ten years. The sauce I had tonight was the sauce she used to make before then, long, long ago when I was very small. I've never made that sauce until now because I wasn't cooking back when she made it taste like this and didn't learn it that way from her.

I imagine you have some of these food memories of your own. Care to share? :hug:

[eleny]

12. I like to put tomato in all my gravies for beef

Using the past is always so good.

As for the memories it brought back, I remember making a sauce that hubby said was just like his mom's. That was a real complement. The difference was that I browned a small chuck steak with the bone in and then added all the ingredients for my tomato sauce. The meat with bone gave it the right flavors like he grew up eating from mom's kitchen.

And btw, the color of the sauce you made with the tomato paste must have had a great color too, I bet. Real rich brownish red. Tastes great and looks rich n' pretty. :D

[hippywife]

13. Yes, it is a lovely color and

is very thick and rich. Sounds like you got it down, too. Nothing evokes memories like taste and smell. Mmmm! :hi:

[kestrel91316]

14. My Polish-Italian friend Noopy always calls it "gravy".

[hippywife]

15. I dunno.

My father's side of the family is all Italian and I never heard it once the whole time I was growing up. It was always, "I'm going to put on some sauce tomorrow." No one had to ask what kind of sauce. It was the tomato sauce and everyone knew it.

Must be a regional thing. I think it's pretty prevelant in the South which makes me hate it all the more because I hate living here in the South.