Craving the Order-Out Tomato Sauce

Craving the Order-Out Tomato Sauce

A confession

Dear friends and readers have you ever had a ravenous craving that springs up out of nowhere at 10:30 am or 2:30 pm (or some such inter-mealtime)? An urge so bizarre and specific that if you were pregnant people would raise their eyes and say knowingly: “ah, a craving!” But you are not, and they don’t.

Today I was ravenous for pizza sauce. But not just any kind of pizza sauce, I craved the pizza sauce that seems to be created especially for lower-end-of-moderate-to-moderately-priced pizza joints like Dominos, Garbonzo’s (review pending), Pizza Hotline, or Boston Pizza. There is something very special about those pizza sauces. They are rich and thick and bright tomato red. Compare this to my home made tomato sauce, which is pale red or even yellowy-orange, acidic, and tastes like the spices I add to it, and you might not be surprised I crave good ol’ tomato sauce once and a while. It finds my food addiction spot and activates it like lab rat with a food reward scheme.

So what could possibly make it different?

Here are some guesses:

-          Tons of Sugar

-          Garlic Powder (for that zip)

-          Not a lot of spices (oregano? Maybe a bit of basil?)

-          Lots of Tomato Paste

-          Chunked Tomatoes

-          Salt

My brother suggested adding carrots (which is what he does). The internet also suggested adding MSG. However, Dominos saves us the trouble of asking. They supply the ingredients to their sauce online. (Drum roll please):

Tomatoes, Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Carrot Puree [Kudos to my brother!], Onions, Celery Puree, Romano and Parmesan Cheese, Sugar, Salt, Garlic, Butter, Spices [I assume they are oregano, basil, maybe parsley], Chicken Base [Dang! Another reason I am a bad vegetarian] (Chicken including: natural chicken juices, salt, chicken fat, sugar, maltodextrin, hydrolyzed corn gluten, dried whey, natural flavoring, yeast extract, turmeric for colour), olive oil, citric acid, xanthan gum.

The xanthan gum probably keeps sauce thick. The chicken base also probably adds thickness, but it also probably adds the umami (i.e meatiness).  My panel of judges (me, my brother, a chef friend, and my wife) predicted 7 of the 28 ingredients (a solid 25%). I guess the thing I wasn't expecting was the chicken Base and, more interestingly, the celery puree.

Ultimately, these tomato sauces are a guilt trip for me because they don’t taste like anything I have made, or know how to make, so I grudgingly call them fake and feel guilty when I order them. But they are real tomato sauces because there are definitely tomatoes in the recipe.

So I guess I will just have to try adding some of these things to my sauce and see what happens. 

Until Next Time,

A