teeming masses: flavoring tomatoes?

[anotheranon]

geekchick's posting about a new spice shop opening up nearby reminded me:

A week or so ago I got bored of the usual and tried this chicken Makhani. Smelled great in the pan, was warm but flavorless on the tongue. Salt helped, but not much. All of which is a damn pity because I love tomato sauces when prepared well but have never been able to mix one myself that doesn't resemble wallpaper paste.

If anyone has any recommendations of how to make tomato sauce (be it Indian, Italian or other) more tomatoey ("tomato++"?) I'd love to hear it.

Comments

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Yep - canned, store brand. There is likely an organic or at least "italian" version at my local grocery, so I will look for that next time I attempt this.

I don't know how to can, but sometimes I think it might not be a bad thing to learn, just for economic reasons. Unfortunately, most of the things that I grew up thinking were "cannable" were things like jams and jellies that I don't usually eat.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's Hunt's brand tomato sauces that I use (I'm out right now, but will confirm next time I'm grocery shopping) ... just checked their site and they have a line of organic tomato sauces that includes two different garlic versions. :-)

Canning is reasonably simple, even if it does make your kitchen temporarily look like a disaster zone (being a farm kid, I grew up with my parents' biannual cucumber relish-making, homemade ketchup, and all kinds of other non-jam/non-jelly stuff). Make sauce, pour into sterilized jars, pour in layer of paraffin wax to create seal, put lid on jar once wax has hardened. Store. Oh, and, if you're my mother, threaten my father with painful death if he even THINKS about "tightening" all the lids when he's in the cellar on other business ***GRIN*** (Dad was compulsive tightener of anything with screw threads, but overtightening changes the air pressure between wax and lid and can compromise the wax seal, causing a nasty jar full of mold)