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

Food Review: Magic Thailand

Magic Thailand
842 Logan Ave



When I started this blog I had promised myself that I wouldn't do restaurant reviews. There were enough other people blogging about what they eat in Winnipeg that I don't really feel the need to tread on their expert feet. But then I realized how long it has been since I posted and my inhibition floated away. 

I will comment on my approach to this: I will write to the following situation: you are at a restaurant either because a friend pressured you into going, or you are on a date and the person chose this place. Maybe you just wandered in. In all cases, you are already there. What should/shouldn't you order? Should you go dangle the hook of a different restaurant in front of their eyes to reel them toward better pastures (err...riverbeds(?))?

So here we go:

Magic Thailand seems to be a house-turned-restaurant located in the middle of the Logan-CPR/West Alexander neighbourhoods, or, as I tend to imagine them: the north end of the west end. Don't expect glamour, but the place was packed with the sort of happy conversational people which you want sitting around you when you eat. 

A group of 6 of us ordered:

Green Curry Udon (with Tofu) - 5 on the spicy scale
Pad Thai (With Tofu) - 5 spice on the spicy scale
Matsaman (With Beef) - 5 on the spicy scale -  WAIT, I though you said you were vegetarian! Yes, well...I can sometimes be tempted into eating meat-steeped sauce (but more about that some other time).
Green Curry Soup - 5 on the spicy scale
Ginger Stir-Fry (Pat Keeng Puck) with Tofu - 5 on the spicy scale
"New Dish" - 4 on the spicy scale - I can't remember the name, but it was basically mixed vegetables and shrimp
Jasmine Rice

Of those dishes, the Green Curry Udon was by far the best. Then the Pad Thai, which was extremely flavourful, and the Green Curry Soup. The rest of the dishes didn't stand out from the crowd of similar dishes in other Thai restaurants around Winnipeg. But that Pad Thai, and that Green Curry...mmmm...they were exceptional. I don't know what it was, but they were a class onto themselves. 

Each dish was about 10-12$ (menu is available on urban spoon) which gets you a large dish of food (enough to make a hungry person like me about 85% full).

So if you end up at Magic Thailand you are in safe hands.

Until next time!