Kurt’s Marinara Sauce
As staples go, there are few things more useful and heartwarming than a good marinara sauce. For pasta lovers all across the globe, the sauce denotes something comforting, something you’re guaranteed to love. Italians love to talk about their sauce, and there’s a good reason. For one, it’s tradition and embodies all the elements of classic Italian cooking: simplicity, creativity, time, love, family. But on another level, it’s rare to taste two identical marinara sauces. One’s recipe is both a celebration of tradition as well as an exploration of how to their own sauce unique.
Try as I might, I don’t make a particularly interesting sauce. It’s okay, but nothing to write home about. I’ve managed to make my peace with this though, since I’m married to someone that happens to make one of the finest marinaras I’ve ever tasted.
Kurt’s sauce is famous in our family. My stepson requests it for every birthday. My uncle makes it a point to drop by for dinner whenever Kurt makes something with his marinara sauce. Kurt’s lasagne is something out of this world for one reason only: his sauce is exquisite and takes the dish to a whole new level.
For whatever reason, I’d never talked with my husband about how he learned to cook his sauce. He’s been making it since I’ve known him (12 years now!). And what a shame that is, because in those twelve years, he’s continually adapted and shaped the recipe in ways I’ve found remarkable and clever. While it wouldn’t be in the spirit of his cooking style to write down the recipe — it changes too consistently for that — there are some key takeaways from his method that I finally felt it worth knowing about, and sharing with the world.
Kurt was chopping onions, red pepper, and garlic when I asked him about the origins of his sauce. I assumed, given his mother’s exceptional lasagnas, that Kurt first learned the recipe from her. Not so. Surely, he admits, some things were passed down to him over the years. But the real inspiration for making his own sauce stemmed from some of his favorite movies: The Godfather, The Goodfellas, and Donnie Brasco. Each of these movies features, at some point, a character whipping up a marinara sauce. (“The phrase ‘a punch of salt’ comes from ones of those films” he says. He thrusts out his hand, puts a mound of salt in his palm, and puts it in his dish).
Even though my husband’s affinity for Italian mafia movies was the impetus to cook his own sauce, his family has a background in delicious Italian meals. His family is part-Italian. And just about every Italian-American family has their own love of sauce, each believing whole-heartedly in their own approach to preparing it. Kurt likens it to rice dishes in other parts of the world. “Every family has their own rice dish, but with similar elements.”
Olive oil heating on the pan over low heat, a bay leaf the only other ingredient, I ask about what he likes the most about cooking it. Interestingly, tradition wasn’t really a factor. Cooking with his mother, they both noticed that they each do things differently. “We made lasagne together once and she doesn’t add onion to hers.” The experience was an interesting one, and full of surprising “You do it that way?” remarks throughout. Twelve years ago, I probably couldn’t have told you the difference between the two. But patience and countless times savoring the flavors, I’ve come to notice they’re uniquely satisfying.
The onions go in, and it feels like a great deal of time has passed before Kurt adds anything else. I look at the stove and see that it’s only on low heat. Much of my problem in making marina sauce is my impatience. I like cooking on medium heat. It’s more efficient, gets the job done faster. But good sauce isn’t about efficiency. It’s about taking your time. Part of the joy in cooking, my husband reminds me, particularly when preparing a marinara, is it relaxes you. “You can sort of zone out while you’re cooking.” And indeed, I do feel relaxed (admittedly, I’m just sitting while I watch my husband cook). Slowly but surely, I notice a change in the aromas. It’s rare that I spend any time at all remarking on something as simple as the browning of onions and red pepper, but I find it delightful all the same.
The next stage of cooking happens to be much more involved, though it’s also where one can see Kurt’s creative side. As an important side note, my husband is a born artist. He’s an exceptional painter who’s won awards for his work. He’s participated in dozens of art shows. He’s had pieces featured in a museum. Outside of this, he draws comics (he’s in the thick of creating a comic story now) and holds a degree in industrial design. There’s no part of him that doesn’t love artistic endeavors.
This also explains, at least in part, why he’s never written down his recipe for marinara sauce. Creating it has always been part of the charm in making it. The process is never really over. Where’s the fun in that?
When he first started making this sauce, he used red wine vinegar for deglazing the pan. It added some tartness. At some point, he started using red wine. Though not precisely the same, it’s similar enough to vinegar but added a little more to the dish, even if it does make the dish a little heavier in feel. “For a lighter sauce, you can go with a white wine.” (He recommends this when making the sauce in the summer). Most recently though, he’s taken to using sweet vermouth (the kind one would use in a Manhattan). It’s only one of his more recent additions that he loves.
This brought me to another question: why make changes at all? If you’ve found what works, why change it up? “Mostly, I use whatever’s lying around in the kitchen.” Makes sense, though it surprised me somewhat. I’m one of those cooks that makes special trips to the grocery store in order to have the ingredients I need. But Kurt’s method is a great way of using what you have, and learning to enjoy the flavors that come out of experimentation.
“Sometimes, you just feel like adding something just because.” He says this as he adds a dollop of tomato paste, another recent addition that he’s been playing around with recently. “It creates a richer flavor.”
The aromas are such that I could stay in the kitchen forever, soaking up the delightful concoction. There’s much to be said for the vermouth and tomato paste mixture. It’s rich, decadent, and instantly denotes something finer than anything your grocery store could’ve provided.
After this, the diced tomatoes are added, followed shortly after by the crushed. He likes one of these to be fire-roasted (though it doesn’t matter which), again because of the subtle flavor it provides. This is a theme I remark upon. In many cases, making marinara sauce is more a practical measure than anything. It doesn’t require strange ingredients to prepare. It’s a sauce that goes with any number of other dishes. And generally, there’s a lot of it. One batch can feed many people. When my husband first started making it, he lived alone and a whole batch could last him the entire week.
But by now, his been making his sauce for two and a half decades and he still gets the same joy out of making it. Much has changed since he first started, and much will continue to evolve over the years. Yes, there’s tradition, and yes he has his own particular way of doing the sauce. But more important than anything is learning to love the process, and learning to add subtle hints here and there that showcase that this sauce is his.
It’s also a means by which he expresses his love. “My family has always shown their love through food,” he says, and you’d believe it were you to try his family’s cooking. The final flourishes are added to his sauce after it’s been cooking for a few minutes, some fresh basil, a little parsley, a dash of sugar, a little butter. The smells are enticing, and all I really care to do now is cut up some bread, dip it in the sauce all evening, and enjoy a good food coma on our couch.
But Kurt keeps testing the sauce, adding a little more sugar, a few more herbs here and there. I used to find this particular characteristic of his incredibly irritating, the constant testing and re-testing of his sauce to assure himself that it was edible. Meanwhile, I’m impatiently tapping my foot while my stomach rumbles. Over time though, I’ve come to appreciate this final ritual in Kurt’s sauce-making. It’s a key step, an acknowledgement of what he’s prepared, as well as what he wants to try next time. No single run through is the same as the last.
And that’s what truly makes me love his sauce more and more each time: the promise that it will only get better with age, that it was made with so much love and preparation, it’s guaranteed to warm your heart. At the end of the day, there’s no greater gift you can give your family.