Sauce it Up

The many toppings to dress up a dish

An Italian pasta dish is bland without that essential topping: sauce. Whether it's based on tomatoes, parsley or butter, sauces are the ubiquitous dressings for your first-course dishes.
The word "sauce" is a French word that refers to a liquid or semi-liquid topping to add taste to foods, and from tomato sauce, to béchamel, salsa verde, and a slew of other toppings, sauces add life and taste to your pasta dishes.
For anyone who doesn't know how to make basic Italian tomato sauce, GoodFellas will teach you all need to know. In Martin Scorsese's 1990 movie about gangster Henry Hill, there's a scene where one of the cronies takes Hill under his wing to teach him how to make the perfect sugo.
Good ole' tomato sauce is made from olive oil, onions, tomatoes, fresh basil, and salt and pepper to taste. To make, peel and chop the tomatoes and the onion. Fry the onion slices in a large frying pan with vegetable oil. Cook for about five minutes and then add the chopped tomatoes. Cook for about 10 minutes. Then add fresh basil leaves. Depending on the cook's taste buds, garlic is often added to the mix. Penne, which are sturdy and short, are best suited for this sauce.
Looking for something with a little more kick? Then marinara sauce, which originated in Naples, might be what you're looking for. This spicy, quickly cooked pasta sauce means "sailor" in Italian and it's particularly popular in North American restaurants and southern Italian cuisine.
To make, combine seeded tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil, parsley, black pepper and chili pepper. Marinara sauce is perfect with spaghetti, penne, or rigatoni.
For something that will keep you warm throughout the remainder of the cool fall nights, there's sugo alla Bolognese (Bolognese Meat Sauce). Ground beef is combined with pancetta, olive oil, onion, carrot, celery, dry red wine, tomatoes, beef broth, salt, pepper and grated parmigiano.
Mince the pancetta and the vegetables, and sauté them in a casserole with the olive oil. When the onion is golden, add the ground meat and continue cooking till it's browned. Stir in the wine and let the sauce simmer till the wine has evaporated, then add the tomatoes, a ladle of broth, and check the seasoning. Continue simmering over a very low flame for about two hours, stirring occasionally, and adding more broth if the sugo looks like it's drying out. This sauce is great topped over gnocchi.
Other meat-inspired sauces include Sugo di maiale, pork sauce and sugo di vitello, veal sauce. Both are staples of the North-American Italian household at Sunday lunch.
And on the greener side of things, there's salsa verde (green sauce). This sauce adds a zest to fish. The recipe calls for the following: 2 ounces (50 g) anchovy filets, boned, 1 ounce capers, 1 clove garlic, a large bunch of parsley, minced, 1/3 cup olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice, to taste, pepper, salt and fresh parsley. It's the parsley that gives this sauce its distinctive colour.
Combine the solid ingredients and blend them with the olive oil and vinegar and pepper to taste. The consistency of the sauce should be fairly liquid, though not watery; add a little broth if need be. If you chose not to include the tuna, increase the capers and anchovies by a proportionate amount.
Béchamel sauce has caused a culinary rift between the French and Italian for centuries. Both countries take credit for inventing this buttery sauce that's perfect over white meats and vegetables.
The Italians say it was created in the 14th century by Catherine de Medici's Italian chefs. Medici, an Italian citizen, married King Henry II of France in 1533 and Medici took the Italian sauce with her to France.
The French argue that it was in fact Marquis Louis de Béchamel, a 17th century financier, who invented the sauce, and with that surname, the French might have a good argument on their hands. De Béchamel was also chief steward of King Louis XIV's household, and it's said that he invented the hotly contended sauce as a result of creating a new way of serving and eating dried cod.
Either way, béchamel sauce, known as besciamella in Italy, is a decadent, white sauce that is well worth the guilt you'll feel after indulging. Flour, butter, milk, parmesan cheese, nutmeg and salt is all you need to create this wonderful classic sauce that's a particular favourite topping in northern Italy.

Publication Date: 2003-11-02
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3306