Pizza Sauce

I love making homemade pizza, but mine always was a bit flawed, or watery I should say. After doing some research I tried a few new techniques. Here they are:

1. Do not cook the sauce. I was skeptical of this. I always made a big pot of sauce, let it cook on the stove and then put it on the pizza and cook it again in the oven. Well, it's already cooking in the oven, so there is no need to double cook it. That's why it may turn a bit brown sometimes.

2. Use whole peeled tomatoes. When at the store, shake the can. If it sounds watery, then the tomatoes are too bitter, look for cans that when you shake them, do not have too much sound.

3. Rinse the tomatoes. Use a small colander and wash the tomatoes. This will help take some of the bitterness out of the tomatoes.

Now here is the process of making the sauce:

Once the tomatoes have been rinsed, take off the top yellowy part of the tomato and if you so choose squeeze out the seeds, the extra water is not necessary, and could make your pizza watery in the end. Once all the tomatoes have been seeded, place in a bowl and mash them. I used an immersion blender. I think this worked really well. If you don't have an immersion blender on hand, a potato masher would work too. Then add salt, a tad of sugar, oregano, and grated romano (all to taste). I could not find grated romano at the store so I substituted with grated parmesan and added a bit more salt. If you do use romano, be careful as to how much salt you add because this already is a salty cheese. Mix together, add more spices/cheese after a taste if need be. You can store this sauce in the fridge. But when you are ready to use the sauce, get it to room temperature first. This sauce was delicious and will be the only way I make pizza sauce from now on.


I learned one other technique to help pizza not turn out too watery. Dry out your fresh mozzarella. A lot of times, fresh mozzarella comes in containers stored with water. I would usually slice it up and put it on the pizza, well this could be the problem too as why homemade pizza can turn out to be too watery. I took the mozzarella balls out of the water and wrapped them in paper towels for awhile so that the moisture would be taken out of them.


Our pizza turned out wonderful, not watery at all, the crust was nice and crispy, not soggy. Hope you enjoyed these pizza making tips.

Meatballs with Fresh Pasta and Grilled Herb Garlic Bread

I never really appreciated the meatball as a culinary delicacy until a few years ago when Kara saw Regis on TV talking about Rao’s. It wasn’t long before we had the Rao’s Cookbook in our kitchen and we were experimenting with some of their classic recipes. The meatballs are a fantastic.

This recipe is our own combination of the Rao’s classic and one from Maroni’s, which is another New York City restaurant, featured on Throwdown with Bobby Flay. We also worked in some techniques from the Italian American Cookbook by John and Galina Mariani.

A couple notes from a lot of experimentation:

· The bread crumbs make a big difference. Rao’s insists that you must make your own from good Italian bread and I would agree with them.

· You have to use romano cheese. I far prefer a good parmesan to romano in most instances but for meatballs the romano provides the right amount of saltiness. They don’t taste right using parmesan.

· The Rao’s marina sauce is the best I’ve ever had and really easy to make at home. Look for imported san marzano tomatoes. You’ll never buy jarred sauce again. We have a hard time finding san marzano around here but we have a case of Rao’s sauce on hand courtesy of Tom and Donna.

I’m certain we’ll never get a chance to eat at Rao’s in New York unless Regis invites us. A couple years ago in Las Vegas we did take the opportunity to eat at the second location at Caesar’s Palace. It’s an exact replica of the Harlem location down to every picture on the wall. Kara ordered the meatballs which were the cheapest item on the menu at $13.00. I was quite please about that until the charming waiter from Italy tricked her into ordering a $19.00 side of pasta!

Anyway they were delicious. Here is our version that we served with fresh homemade pasta and herb garlic bread from the grill

1 pound ground lean beef
½ pound ground veal
½ pound ground pork
3 large eggs
1 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1 ½ tablespoons chopped Italian parsley

1 ½ tablespoons of chopped basil
1 clove of garlic, minced
4 or 5 slices of Italian bread soaked in milk
Salt (preferably Kosher or Sea Salt) and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 cups of homemade breadcrumbs
1 cup olive oil

1. Combine beef, veal, and pork in a large bowl. Add 3 eggs, cheese, parsley, garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Using your hands, blend ingredients together. Blend soaked bread into meat mixture. Shape meat mixture into balls (2 ½- to 3-inch balls).
2. Dip meatballs into egg wash and then coat in breadcrumbs
3. Heat oil in a large sauté pan. When oil is very hot but not smoking, fry meatballs in batches. When bottom half of meatball is very brown and slightly crisp turn and cook top half. Remove from heat and drain on paper towels.
4. Finish the meatballs in simmering marinara sauce