Sauces · French cuisine
Sauce tomate
France’s basic tomato sauce – with salt pork, mirepoix, flour and stock, cooked in the oven.
At a glance
- Origin
- France; among Escoffier’s basic sauces (1903, 1907).
- Production
- Salt pork, mirepoix, flour, tomatoes and stock, oven-cooked and strained.
- Ratio
- Escoffier for 4 quarts: 10 lb tomatoes and 2 quarts white stock, 5 oz flour.
Sauce tomate is the French tomato sauce that Escoffier placed among the basic sauces beside espagnole, velouté and béchamel; Carême’s four did not yet include it. Unlike Italian sugo al pomodoro it is thickened and built on stock.
According to Escoffier, salted pork belly is melted in butter, diced carrot and onion, bay leaf and thyme are added, then flour, which is allowed to colour lightly. Tomatoes and white stock follow with salt, sugar, pepper and a clove of garlic, and the sauce cooks covered in a moderate oven for about an hour and a half. Finally it is strained and the surface is buttered to prevent a skin.