Fire Master Viola Asks
“I’m wondering what tomatoes you all are using. I’ve been making a sauce with Stanislaus tomatoes adding roasted garlic and basil. It’s good but I’ve made the sauce because I didn’t think the tomatoes tasted good enough, just crushed and didn’t have access to buy anywhere besides Restaurant depot. Does anyone have a brand of tomatoes that they love and use to make a traditional Margherita?. “
Fire Master Rushton Asks
“Has anyone tried using Stanislaus full plum tomato? Or even their pear tomato?”
As you can see, we get a lot of questions about tomatoes and sauce. Almost everyone has their own favorite recipe but choosing the right tomato is important for every sauce. Pizza sauce is prepared with uncooked pureed tomatoes and by far the best tomatoes are the Marzano Tomatoes. They are grown in the region of San Marzano Italy and cultivated on hillsides with Mt. Vesuvius’ soil. They are less acidic than Romas, which gives the sauce a more sweet, rich flavor. The most commonly used tomato in the Americas is the Roma. Often referred to as the plum tomato, or pasta tomato. The roma has less water than other tomatoes and a slightly denser, meaty flesh, with fewer seeds. It is ideal for pasta sauces, because it naturally provides the sauce with that signature hardy texture. Romas are also more common due to their ability to grow in more diverse climates. They only need 6 hours of sun and a steady temperature between 55℉ and 90℉. Growing is a great way to minimize overhead cost. Start your garden in the mid-spring and store your stewed tomatoes in cans or jars.
If gardening isn’t your thing and you are in need of a lot of tomatoes, basil, etc., we recommend your local farmers market. Here you can find prices that are much cheaper than a grocery store. You may even be able to create a partnership with local farmers and/or suppliers. There are also sauce manufacturers and suppliers who make outstanding sauce products. One of our favorites is DiNapoli. If you are going to serve pizza you are going to need a lot of flour and tomatoes. Here are a few roma varieties you can experiment with.
- Plum Regal: a fleshy, flavorful, dark red variety of Roma tomato with immunity to blight disease.
- Sunrise Sauce: a variety popular for its sweet flavor, ideal for making sauces and pastes.
- Heinz: the best-known paste tomato variety. It produces large, flavorful tomatoes.
- Martino’s Roma: these produce dark red, pear-shaped tomatoes with high yields and excellent blight resistance.
