SICILIAN TOMATO SAUCE
MOZZARELLA & PROVOLONE
BREADCRUMBS WITH PECORINO & ROMANO
WOOD FIRED ITALIAN CRUST
I finally got to try a version of this in Italy this year! And after taking some pasta and pizza classes in Rome & Naples, I think I made the perfect adjustments to my sauce for this annual favorite. The Italians are right. You really do have to start with whole, peeled tomatoes, and you really do have to crush them by hand. Bellissima!
The all-day sauce is made with sautéed onion with a few anchovies melted in. Hand-crushed Italian tomatoes, a lil oregano, and let it bubble away all day, stirring every 20 minutes until you don't remember a life before you started stirring. When it's done, it magically tastes nothing like its individual parts. It transforms into a velvety super flavorful tomato sauce that you'd swear was lovingly crafted by a 90 year old Sicilian grandma. But it's me. I'm the 90 year old Sicilian grandma.
You can find this pizza, called Sfincione, year round in Sicily and in some areas of Southern Italy. But in the average Sicilian home, it's enjoyed as traditional treat for Christmas and the New Year. I really hope you love this one. The breadcrumb+cheese crust situation on this is magical.
If I could do what I wanted, I would make this sauce for dozens of different pizzas throughout the year. But alas, sitcoms from the 80's and 90's used anchovies on pizza as the butt of too many jokes. So now we have a couple generations of people who think they don't like something they'll actually love. I blame ABC's TGIF lineup from the mid 90's, specifically.
