Italian Pasta Sauce Regional Dark Brown?!
Answers: Years ago a friend of my Dad's, with the last name of Spadea, made one of the best pasta sauces I've ever had! It was very dark in color, not the usual red at all, and I believe it was a marinara but could have had cooked down meat juices in it. It was not tomato flavored at all nor was it the Bolegnese sauce made here in the United States. Might anyone have an answer to what this sauce could be? I'm not sure in what part of Italy the name Spadea comes from so I don't know how to look for this, possibly, by location. Thanks!
In Italy you will find frequent use of an ingredient called "concentrato." It is very, very concentrated tomato paste made by drying fresh seeded, skinless tomato puree in the sun to get as much liquid out of it as possible. The final product is crumbly but not quite dry -- to me it has a consistency close to that of the Middle Eastern sweet called halvah. It becomes a very dark reddish brown in color, and has a wonderful, sweet tomato-ey flavor. You add as much or as little concentrato as you like to a dish, according to how much tomato flavor you want the product to have. Concentrato is used both to give some color and a little tomato-ey sweetness to a dish, such as a braised osso buco, or to punch up freshly made tomato sauce.
Remember also that as fresh tomatoes slowly cook and reduce and blend into a sauce, the pigment darkens considerably from the heat. A long-cooked tomato sauce is seldom bright red, as it is when you start, but some lighter red color can be "restored" (by dilution) if a little cream is added. Maybe your father's friend just cooked his ordinary tomato sauce for a long, long time.
MIght be a mole (pronounced mol-ley) sauce...think it might be Mexican or Spanish...has chocolate in it.
Most good cookbooks should have a recipe to make it.
Was it similar to or a variation of this recipe?
Farfalle with Italian Mushrooms and Brown Sauce
INGREDIENTS:
4 cups, dried mushrooms, coarsely chopped
4 cups, warm water
2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped
3 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 medium (about 18 ounce) can, peeled, unseasoned chopped tomatoes, drained
1 loosely-packed cup, fresh basil, finely chopped (or 2 tablespoons dried basil)
1 loosely-packed cup, fresh oregano, finely chopped (or 2 tablespoons dried oregano)
1 teaspoon, ground black pepper
1/2 cup, olive oil
1/2 cup, dry red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon is best)
1/2 cup, Madeira sherry
2 pounds farfalle (bowtie) noodles
12 quarts, water
1 cup, freshly grated Romano cheese
Salt to taste
PREPARATION:
Soak mushrooms for about one hour, then strain them and chop them into pieces, about 1/2 inch square.
Heat olive oil in large skillet, and add mushrooms and onions. Sauté mixture over high heat until onions are translucent, then add tomatoes. Cook mixture until tomatoes begin to dry, then add wine, stirring mixture frequently as wine boils down.
Add garlic, pepper, basil and oregano as the mixture cooks down, continuing to stir until garlic appears to be just in the process of turning translucent, then reduce heat to low.
While the sauce is cooking down, bring water to a boil in large pot, add a teaspoon of salt and a few drops of olive oil.
When water comes to a boil, add the farfalle. Cook pasta for about 12 minutes, or until tender, but not limp.
Drain pasta and add to skillet with sauce, tossing until the pasta is completely coated. Serve sprinkled with Romano cheese.
Serves 6 to 8