Home made pasta sauce - too acidic?

splishsplash

I agree with the sugar, a couple of squares of chocolate will add to the depth of flavour too!

Fruball

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Noooooooooooooooo! That'll be because the bicarb is reacting with the ascorbic acic, aka vitamin C, and therefore denaturing it :eek: You want to keep as many vitamins as you can

I never thought of that - sugar then

seraphina

Don't worry about neutralising vitamin C - you lose far more vitamin C content through cooking than you do through any acid/base reactions which will still leave ascorbic salts behind as antioxidants.

jjww_2

I often use ginger in tomato based sauces as it sweetens them up, not too much though.

althas

I must say i never put a sweet thing into my tomato pasta sauce. Just Onion, garlic, tin toms, tom puree, salt, pepper and italian herbs for flavour. I then pass it all through a sieve, blend the lumps that do not go through and put them back in (sneaky way of getting "rid" of the onions)

If I do need something sweet, I always use a touch of honey instead of sugar. A lot better for you

Mols

I find the acidity also depends on the order I add the ingredients. I made a batch for the freezer on Wednesday:

2 x tins chopped tinned tomatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 bay leaves
1 x chopped orange or yellow pepper

Allow to simmer gently on low heat for 20 minutes

Then I add:

2 cloves crushed garlic
pinch of salt
little black pepper and two teaspoons of dried basil or oregano

Simmer for another 5 minutes then I add the rest of the vegetables which are normally 1 x small courgette, 5 x large portabello mushrooms and a handful of chopped black olives.

Simmer gently until all vegetables are cooked, remove the bay leaves and add more pepper if needed.

Nicifer_noonoo

A teaspoon or so of bicarb will neutralise some of the acid

Alison_Funnell

Sugar or a glug of milk.

I have to agree with the long slow cooking - really mellows the flavour. Cooking in batches makes it less of a faff.

Bambywamby

I use a small slug of olive oil and a tsp of sugar, makes a lovely sweet and smooth tomato sauce.

shebrett

I second the honey nomination, gives a nice gentle sweetness to a pasta sauce. A little sun dried tomato paste also rounds out a sauce that is too overpowered with tomatoes.