Name: Meatball Shop's Classic Tomato Sauce
Yield: Makes 7 cups
Ingredients: 1/4 cup olive oil; 1 onion, finely diced; 1 bay leaf; 1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dried; 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped; 2 teaspoons salt or to taste; 2 tablespoons tomato paste; Two 26-ounce boxes Pomi Chopped Tomatoes or two 28-ounce cans whole plum tomatoes, chopped with their liquid

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Photo by Matt Duckor

Since everyone has his or her version of this sauce, we spent a lot of time getting this one right. No surprise, the best results came from using the best ingredients. When it comes to tomato sauce, using poor quality canned tomatoes can leave an acidic or tinny taste in your mouth. So while it is a bit more expensive, we like to use Pomi brand chopped tomatoes (you know, the ones that come in a box). The sauce starts with a careful "sweating" of onions (cooking them slowly, until translucent but not brown, to extract as much flavor as possible), and the flavor continues to build from a nice, long, low-heat simmering after the tomatoes are added.

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