This new biweekly column explores the intersection of culinary arts and kitchen science.
Made with only a handful of unassuming chopped ingredients and left on the stovetop to simmer for an hour or less, marinara sauce is deceptive in its simplicity. When something is this good there’s usually a reason.
One taste of the richly complex, sweet and savory sauce, with its caramelized overtones and floral undertones, all balanced with just the right amount of acidity, and you might wonder if you’ve somehow cheated. What makes this simple concoction so amazing is the flavor chemistry built into its ingredients. Marinara, traditionally considered the sauce of mariners, takes its name from the Italian word for sailor.
Tomatoes play the starring role. In the cold months, you need to use canned tomatoes, but right now, these luscious red orbs are still at their peak. They house a factory of sorts, developing taste and aroma molecules as they ripen. What gives fresh tomatoes their taste is sugars, organic acids (citric and malic), salts, and amino acids like glutamate (the key player in umami taste). Aroma compounds — chemists call them “volatiles” — provide distinctive fruity-floral character and bright green notes that bring to mind cut grass and the vines from which the fruit was plucked.
Cooking tomatoes changes the flavor. But the first change comes on the cutting board. Slicing into the juicy ripe fruit sets the molecular transformation in motion. As cell walls are cut open, enzymes and flavor molecules begin to interact with each other, and with oxygen (from the air); they form new aroma compounds, even before the knife has cut all the way through. Skin left on simmering tomatoes adds to that.
On the stovetop, those fresh notes are released and give way to earthy, caramelized flavors with remnants of floral undertones. Sugars and carotenoids break down to create the distinctive cooked characteristics everyone loves in marinara sauce. Complex interactions among molecules also create hints of pleasurable, pungent sulfur and bring about a savory taste.
Some cooks add a pinch of sugar after tasting the sauce to highlight sweetness and balance tartness. Others add a small portion of uncooked, pureed fresh tomatoes, which makes the sauce lighter and gives it a taste of the garden. Garlic boosts pungency.
Fresh basil brings its bright and fruity floral essence and adds a hint of anise. Unfortunately, the popular herb goes from bright green to dark brown when you cut it and release enzymes that set oxidation in motion. Heat deactivates the enzymes, which is why some people blanch the leaves before making pesto (drop them in boiling water for a few seconds). Here we add the leaves to the simmering sauce immediately after they are cut to ensure they stay green.
Six ordinary ingredients add up to one deluxe pot.
Valerie Ryan can be reached at valerie.ryan.j@gmail.com.