Canned San Marzanos question

So I recently discovered the beauty of the canned San Marzanos for making my own tomato sauces, which has worked out beautifully except that it's more watery than what I prefer.

So my question, should I not be using the juice from the can? Is supplementing with tomato sauce enough?

gmonkey wrote:So I recently discovered the beauty of the canned San Marzanos for making my own tomato sauces, which has worked out beautifully except that it's more watery than what I prefer.

So my question, should I not be using the juice from the can? Is supplementing with tomato sauce enough?

gm.,

It all depends on the dish and the consistency of the sauce that you're looking for. For the basic quick tomato sauce, I put in the tomatoes -- i.e., just the tomatoes plucked out of the can with a fork, smash them up, turn up the heat and cook them down for 15 or 20 minutes with vigorous heat. If they get too tight, I add some of the juice from the can. If the sauce is supposed to cook longer, I add some of the juice straight away. But whatever I do, I never waste a drop of it (when I store left over parts of cans, I rinse the inside of the can with a little water to get all of the tomato bits available).

Of course, canned Italian peeled tomatoes are perfect for sauce and that's what we use pretty much all year round -- except this time of year, when ripe fresh tomatoes are available in abundance.

I hope that helps.

Antonius

For some reason, Antonius, I knew you'd be the first to respond.

Thanks for the tips! And I do realize that this is the prime season for good tomatoes, but I really dig on the sweetness and the convenience of the already peeled San Marzanos. Plus, being in the desert, and because all the good restaurants seem to have first pick of the good produce before the grocery stores, canned tomatoes are consistent for me.

I have a related question for LTH at large: Which of the myriad brands of San Marzano tomatoes are your favorite and where do you buy them?

Carmelina has been my favorite, both for canned whole and bottled passata. Wonderful flavor, but very, very simple and pure and light. That way, if I want it more intense, I just cook it down a bit. I get them at Fox & Obel, and the price strikes me as reasonable, though I'm sure they could be found elsewhere.

There was a brand I used to get when I was living out west called Merysa that I haven't been able to find since I got back. It's been a long time, but I remember them being spectacular.

stevez wrote:I have a related question for LTH at large: Which of the myriad brands of San Marzano tomatoes are your favorite and where do you buy them?

Steve,

Mark Bello, Pizza Maven Extraordinaire, uses and recommends Carmelina. I've bought them at Bouffe, though I imagine there are any number of places they can be purchased.

Carmelina San Marzano


Enjoy,
Gary

Bouffe
312 W Leland Ave
Chicago, IL 60625
773-784-2314

I get the Carmelina as well, but typically buy them at Bari, where they are about 30-40 cents per can cheaper than at Whole Foods and 50-60 cents per can cheaper than F&O.

The Carmelinas are usually my go-to can. I like yellow packaging.

And I usually get them out here at Sunflower Market, which is kind of like a cheaper Whole Foods (and makes their own sausages, a nice plus!).

stevez wrote:I have a related question for LTH at large: Which of the myriad brands of San Marzano tomatoes are your favorite and where do you buy them?

I tend to alternate between the non-san marzano Muir Glen(been using them forever) and the domestic san marzanos in the white can ringed with an almost silkscreen-looking graphic of the eponymous fruit.

Tho' I'd like to branch out, why mess with a good thing?

of course, I look for *only* tomatoes, sea salt, tomato juice, calcium chloride, and citric acid as ingredients...no garlic powder, basil, whatever-else need apply

also only whole tomatoes...I find chopped tomatoes have an elusive texture verging on the rubbery: I can easily squish, chop my own

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having offered the above, I'll add that I picked up ten pounds of half yellow, half red plum tomatoes(of uncertain provenance...certainly not organic) at the Division/Clark farmers market this past Saturday and spent a couple hours Sunday stewing my own and freezing the results(with some torn up basil)...

those(and more to come) will keep me in salsa pomodoro for awhile until I start mixing half and half with the aforementioned canned...

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it's also the time of year when I start oven-drying large batches of grape and cherry tomatoes which'll keep in the fridge for at least a year(if they don't git et, before then)

I'm also experimenting this week oven-drying habaneros

tomato/chile season!

gmonkey wrote:... Plus, being in the desert, and because all the good restaurants seem to have first pick of the good produce before the grocery stores, canned tomatoes are consistent for me.

Yes, indeed, the consistency, the convenience, they're hard to beat. And the quality too. The best brands from Italy offer beautifully ripe tomatoes with relatively low acidity. Aside from the late summer, I use only imported Italian tomatoes (usually San Marzano, but there are other excellent tomatoes from Italy).

*

Steve,

I liked Nina for a long time for the larger cans but lately the only product from them is peeled tomatoes packed with the thick puree, which I don't like especially. I like just the plain old whole tomatoes with nothing more in the can than a basil leaf; any necessary thickening and adjusting I do by my own methods. Carmelina is very good (Whole Foods, Italian stores); so too La Bella San Marzano which is widely available (all the Italian stores) but the price has gone way up in the last few years, probably on account of all the non-Italians getting wise to the quality of our San Marzano's.

I have some Italian non-San Marzano brands that I know and love and are still relatively cheap but I want them to stay that way...


*

I remember seeing the people on America's Test Kitchen extol the virtues of Muir Glen and I gave them a try (they claimed that MG was vastly superior to any Italian imports, if I remember correctly) but from the perspective of this Italian palate, they're certainly good tomatoes but the texture and the flavour are not what I want for my Italian dishes.

When I have more space for growing and processing, I'll do my own bottling as my cousins in Italy do... someday...*

A

*I should do as CG does and dry some tomatoes from the garden out. Thanks for the reminder!

Antonius wrote:

gmonkey wrote:... Plus, being in the desert, and because all the good restaurants seem to have first pick of the good produce before the grocery stores, canned tomatoes are consistent for me.

Yes, indeed, the consistency, the convenience, they're hard to beat. And the quality too. The best brands from Italy offer beautifully ripe tomatoes with relatively low acidity. Aside from the late summer, I use only imported Italian tomatoes (usually San Marzano, but there are other excellent tomatoes from Italy).

*

Steve,

I liked Nina for a long time for the larger cans but lately the only product from them is peeled tomatoes packed with the thick puree, which I don't like especially. I like just the plain old whole tomatoes with nothing more in the can than a basil leaf; any necessary thickening and adjusting I do by my own methods. Carmelina is very good (Whole Foods, Italian stores); so too La Bella San Marzano which is widely available (all the Italian stores) but the price has gone way up in the last few years, probably on account of all the non-Italians getting wise to the quality of our San Marzano's.

I have some Italian non-San Marzano brands that I know and love and are still relatively cheap but I want them to stay that way...


*

I remember seeing the people on America's Test Kitchen extol the virtues of Muir Glen and I gave them a try (they claimed that MG was vastly superior to any Italian imports, if I remember correctly) but from the perspective of this Italian palate, they're certainly good tomatoes but the texture and the flavour are not what I want for my Italian dishes.

When I have more space for growing and processing, I'll do my own bottling as my cousins in Italy do... someday...*

A

*I should do as CG does and dry some tomatoes from the garden out. Thanks for the reminder!

you just can't beat an oven-dried grape tomato...esp. if you're afraid of "bugs" and/or don't have a patio/balcony to sun-dry them

I hadn't thought of MG tomatoes in terms antithetical to Italian dishes...I think you might be right there

tho' I still enjoy 'em

I *do* need to branch out as per imported san marzanos: I recently tried a canned imported brand(the name escapes me...bought at Treasure Island....anyway) of cherry tomatoes that just didn't make the grade for pure salsa pomodoro Hazan-style...upon realizing this in the tasting I quickly turned them into an innocuous pizza sauce adulterated with the usual suspects...and froze half the batch for future pizza dough experiments.

Muir Glen tomato products are surprisingly flavorful. They actually taste like tomatoes, not something that kind of reminds you of tomatoes. I think this freaks some people out-- I've heard people object to the ketchup because, reading between the lines, it didn't taste fake enough, I think. It didn't have that real fake ketchup taste.

That said, it does seem like when you're making something intended to be pretty authentically Italian, and the Italian is readily available in a variety of brands, you shouldn't be using a west coast product any more than you should open a bottle of Bonny Doon to go with it. Muir Glen does seem a little brightly, blondely "American"-- as in health food store circa 1990s American-- to me next to Italian tomatoes. So I too usually grab the Italian can nearby, whatever it might happen to be, but I can't say I've done the double blind tests to precisely verify and quantify the difference.

What I'm curious about is the Il Miracolo di San Gennaro can pictured next to the Mark Bello-approved Carmelina ones in G Wiv's picture above. Curious because according to the lady at Bouffe, where the Carmelina ones were, what, $3 a can, the Miracolo ones are... $9 for the same size can. Are they really that fantastic? Does anyone know?

(I do hear that if you take a can of them, spread it on a loaf of Crust bread, and put on some slices of Isola bufala mozzarella, it makes one hell of a $25 sandwich....)

I got this truc from my Aunt Isabella:

Place a strainer over a bowl, pour in tomatoes, drain. Add juice to saucepan over medium high flame and reduce the tomato liquid by one-half.

Just wanted to say that Stanley's carries Carmelina tomatoes. For some reason I could have sworn they were $1.79 a can, but after seeing mention of them being $3 at another place, perhaps they are > $2.
Jamie

"$3" came from Isola's online price of $2.60 for a 28 oz. can, but around town they may be more like $2 or even under.

Carmelina = $2.39 at Bari.

tem wrote:Carmelina = $2.39 at Bari.

I can also verify that the 14 oz. cans of Carmelina at Bari are $1.19 (which means that the 28oz is actually 1 cent more than you would pay for two 14 oz cans).

I can't remember what brand I used to get from Caputo's, but for a while now I've been using the Nina (white can). Haven't bought any in a while as a friend remembered the small(er) Nina can we had and picked up some giant ones at Costco (Downer's grove area possibly; no idea how much).

Although obvious, I should not for those who venture into this thread that one should inspect the label carefully - some brands are "San Marzano style" and not necessarily of Italian origin if that is what one is looking for.

Just to update my own post, Stanley's has 28 oz Carmelina cans for $2.69. Perhaps it is new, or perhaps I just never noticed, but they also have 91 oz cans of Carmelina for $5.89 (think that was price, know it was < $6). There had 2 be 100+ cans lined up under the organic produce display along same wall they have the olive bar.

A much more economical way of buying, especially since I usually use 3-4 28 oz cans when I make sauce.

Jamie

Jamieson22 wrote:Perhaps it is new, or perhaps I just never noticed, but they also have 91 oz cans of Carmelina for $5.89 (think that was price, know it was < $6). There had 2 be 100+ cans lined up under the organic produce display along same wall they have the olive bar.

I think they are new. I was at Stanley's yesterday, and you're right, those 91 oz cans are $5.89.