Tomato Sauce (Sauce Tomate)

Definition

The fifth and most accessible mother sauce, made from tomatoes, aromatics, and stock. It's the only mother sauce you can make on a Tuesday night without pretension.

Example Usage

The tomato sauce for pasta needs to simmer for at least 30 minutes.

Origin

While tomatoes are New World crops, French culinary tradition formalized tomato sauce as a mother sauce in the 18th-19th centuries

Fun Fact

Tomato sauce is technically the youngest of the five mother sauces since tomatoes didn't arrive in Europe until the 16th century

Source: Classical French sauce terminology

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