Tomato sauce is not the same as marinara. Say it with me – tomato sauce is not the same as marinara. If there is one thing that was made clear to me this week, it was this very point. On Tuesday night we made tomato sauce, as in one of the five mother sauces – not marinara. You can make marinara from tomato sauce, but it is NOT marinara sauce. Everyone clear on that point now? Good, let’s move on.
The other thing I learned about tomato sauce is that it’s really freaking good. It’s laden with animal product (salt pork, bones, chicken stock), but it is really flavorful. As much as I love to modify recipes, I’m not sure how I could possibly modify this into a vegetarian friendly version and keep the same depth of flavor. The deeper into this program I go, the more exposure I’m getting to a whole new flavor profile that I’ve been missing out on as a vegetarian. (Not to say that vegetarian food isn’t delicious or elegant or lacking in depth or complexity, it totally has all of that.)
