our sauce is a prepared sauce… We cook it that is… it is primarily made up of pureed plum tomatoes… we’ve noticed recently that it is separating a bit when we put it on a shell… how do you guys feel about cooked sauces versus noncooked and do you have any recommendations to help with our situation??? thnx
When you cook a sauce, the heat removes some of the flavor. From a recent talk with Stanislaus, they recommend a 12-14% solids sauce. Their Full Red product line runs around 16% and the Saporito runs about 18-20% solids. They use a vacuum heating process which steams the water out at a lower temp than an open system (like you’d use in your kitchen). Therefore, they are able to remove some of the moisture without cooking the flavor out.
To thicken up your sauce, try adding some of the Saporito to your sauce. That will increase the solids content and give you a thicker sauce. There could be more to it than JUST the thickness because there’s an enzyme located just below the skin that impacts how the flesh retains or releases water. If you use skinless tomatoes to start, you lose some of that enzyme which will cause the release of water from the solids. At least that’s how I THINK I remember what Steve told me.
You can gain some of this info from www.stanislaus.com but if you need more info, give them a call.
EDIT – Steve tells me I’m wrong on the enzyme part. There’s something just below the skin, and well, like I said, he gave me a LOT of info and trying to fit so much info into my small brain jumbled it all up .
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