Tomato Sauce and Spagetti Cake
This is one of the five mother sauces that I talked about last time. It is an extremely easy sauce to make and one
that is recognized by everyone.
To make a good
tomato sauce, I like to use the freshest tomatoes I can, as this provides the
best flavor possible. However, if it is winter or tomatoes are not in season,
canned tomatoes will do just fine. The sauce that I like to make contains
roasted tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato juice as the main ingredients. This
sauce is the one that I have made at school.
Roasted Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
·
Olive
oil, as needed
·
1
Tbsp. minced garlic
·
2
Tbsp. minced Shallots or onion
·
¼ cup
tomato paste
·
3
cups roasted tomatoes, skinned
·
1½
cup tomato juice
·
2
Tbsp. basil, sliced thinly
·
2 tsp.
dried oregano
·
Pinch
of sugar
·
Salt
and pepper, as needed
Directions
1. Heat the olive oil and sweat the shallots/onion
and garlic, then add tomato paste and caramelize
2. Add the roasted tomatoes and tomato juice;
simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Make sure that the sauce does not
burn.
3. Puree the mixture
4. Add salt and pepper to enhance the flavor,
garnish with the basil
Shallots are an
expensive and hard to find item in a store. If you don’t want to spend the
extra money, you can just use an onion instead. Shallots look like a mini onion
and have a just stronger flavor.
I wanted to make a recipe of “Spagetti Cake” using the
tomato sauce, but I admit that it was hard to prevent my kids from eating the
cooked noodles before they had been put into the cake. It took several tries on my part. However, I eventually prevailed and now I
would like to share this easy and possibly elegant rendition of “Noodles with
Red Sauce,” as it is called in my house.
Spagetti Cake (inspired by Susie Fishbein)
Ingredients:
1 16 oz. box of spagetti, thin spagetti or other long noodle
2/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup (8 oz.) ricotta cheese
4 eggs
1 tsp. each dried basil and oregano
½ tsp. each garlic powder and onion powder or use 1 tsp. dried, minced
onions
½ tsp. salt
3-4 cups freshly made tomato sauce or 1 26-oz jar of sauce
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Cover the
bottom of the pan with parchment paper. Spray the sides and bottom of spring
form pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Cook the noodles according to directions, but a tiny bit underdone.
Drain the noodles and put back into the cooking pot (do not store in fridge
overnight as I did or they may be eaten before you get any further!)
Mix in all of the ingredients above.
Place into spring form pan and press gently on top to remove air
pockets.
Bake, covered for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven, remove top and cool for 10 minutes. Slide knife gently around the edges of the
pan and release the sides slowly.
Turn upside down on extra plate and remove the parchment paper. Flip cake again.
Serve with a spatula, just as you would a “regular” cake.
 |
| Out of the oven in the spring form pan |
 |
Ready to flip, sitting on metal bottomEnjoy!Devin and Viki |
Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes before running a knife around the edges carefully and releasing the side of the springform pan.
Then flip the cake onto an extra plate to remove the bottom of the pan and the parchment paper. Flip again onto your plate of choice and you are ready to serve!
