Tomato concassee is one of the most beautiful tomato sauces you’ll ever make.  It can be rough and rustic or it can be smooth and refined and fancy.  It’s a major ingredient in dishes like Chicken Chasseur and Sauce Choron, but it can also be used in my fabulous Sicilian Quiche, and so much more.  It’s also my favorite pizza sauce because it can be used to any left of chunky or smooth, and it’s the same with pasta; you can use it as a coulis (coulis is just a puree that’s had some liquid and possibly other flavors added), or nice and chunky with cream added, or curry, etc.

So this is a great recipe and it’s super easy.  It only takes a little time to prep the tomatoes.  But it freezes well enough so you can make a bunch at once and use it out of the freezer, especially if you puree it.  I’m also filing this under Cooking Basics because I think it’s a very important part of your sauce education.  A cook who doesn’t know this sauce isn’t a complete cook.

Ingredients:

4 lbs. Fresh tomatoes, cut concassee
1/2 large onion, diced. You can put as much onion as you like though.
4 cloves fresh garlic, chopped.
4 large sprigs of thyme. You can use dried if you like, but fresh matters here.
2 bay leaves
1.5 t. kosher salt
1 t. white pepper
2 T. Fresh basil, chiffonade or diced.  Really, just cut them any way you like.
2 T. oil, for sauteeing the onions.

Method:

1. Peel, seed, and cut tomatoes.
2. Saute onions in the oil with the bay and thyme for about 2mins.
3. Add garlic and tomatoes, salt and pepper.
4. Cook at medium to high heat until it’s as dry as you want it.

Notes:

1. You can just barely cook this so all the ingredients are still fresh tasting and the garlic is still nice and strong, or you can cook it completely dry.
2. I’ve even made this completely raw before.  Just add all the raw ingredients into a blender.  You can use this as a nice fresh sauce for a pasta salad, or even a pizza sauce.  It really gives the pizza a fresh, sharp taste like you’ve never had before.

So enjoy this lovely sauce.