We’ve been making pizza for many years, making our tomato sauce out of tomato paste mixed with a little homemade tomato sauce. But many people swear by the excellence of pizza made using San Marzano tomatoes instead. 

San Marzano

The San Marzano tomato originated in the town of San Marzano, near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. It’s a plum tomato, but longer and thinner than other plum varieties. It has more flesh than many other varieties, with a stronger, sweeter taste.

The tomatoes originally were grown only in the volcanic soil near Mt Vesuvius, which may have led to their somewhat unique flavor. Here’s a nice summary of the tomatoes and the town where they are grown.

Canned San Marzano tomatoes are widely available, but only those with a DOP label are considered authentic, since they are grown only in the Campania region. Seeds are widely available, and you can grow them yourself, but they won’t be the same as ones grown in the warm climate of southern Italy. 

The tomatoes are indeterminate (which means they keep growing rather than stopping at a particular height) and are thus prolific have a long growing season. My own experience of growing them in New England would suggest that they are a pale imitation of their Italian cousins: they need the Italian climate. They are also somewhat disease prone in northern climates.

So, to make your San Marzano pizza, you would use canned San Marzano tomatoes, just as the Italians do. They are readily available, but more expensive than other varieties. We found a 22 oz can of Cento brand organic San Marzano tomatoes at Stop and Shop for about $6.00. However, you can buy the same tomatoes with the organic marketing label for about $4.00 at Walmart. (For a complete discussion of organic marketing, you can read about how the organic program developed here). 

Our recipe

Still, San Marzano are more expensive. Cento sells a 22 oz can of “canned Italian tomatoes” for only $2.99. But for this recipe, we bought the Stop of Shop Cento organic San Marzano for $6, carrying them gingerly to our car. (We found the Walmart price for the non organic version later).

These tomatoes come in a puree, also made from San Marzanos, but a bit watery to use in pizza sauce, so we scooped out the actual tomatoes and drained them in a sieve before using them.

We always make our pizza sauce using garlic, oregano, basil and rosemary, so we put the drained tomatoes into a blender with the cut up spices and minced garlic. This was really all there was to our pizza sauce, but since it was still a bit watery, we drained it again before spreading it on our homemade pizza dough.

We rolled out our usual pizza dough recipe and slipped some cornmeal under the dough so we could easily slide it onto the pizza peel. We spread the sauce on the rolled out dough. 

Then we added some EVOO and topped the pie with fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, onions and some sliced mildly hot peppers. We slipped the pie onto a hot pizza stone in a 475˚F oven and baked it for 18 minutes.

We’ll have to say that it tasted great. Was it different than our usual recipe? Yes, it did have a slightly different taste.  Was it better and worth the expense?  I think I’ll quote Martha Stewart here, and suggest that you have to decide for yourself. Some people will find it worth it, and others would not be able to tell the difference from ordinary canned tomatoes. It’s up to you!

Pho is a Vietnamese beef noodle soup, and is a delicious work of art. It is not something simple like American chicken noodle soup, but a deep, rich beefy broth made slowly for hours. You can make your own, but a really good pho broth is made by simmering beef meat and bones for 6 hours or more. Even an Instant Pot version of pho takes up to 3 hours of simmering. And, of course, there are pho beef broth concentrates you can buy. And if you do go to all that work, how would you know if you’ve achieved anything like what real Vietnamese pho is like? And these recipes don’t easily scale down to broth for just a few people.

I looked around my area for restaurants that served pho to see what it should be like. There were two places in Norwalk, CT that offered pho, as well as one more in Stamford. So I set out last week to try the closest one, Good Hope Dumpling and Ramen House. They offered pho for $16 and with beef slices added, $20. They also offered pork soup dumplings, a favorite of mine.

Well, their pho came as a do-it-yourself kit. A quart of chicken stock and a bowl containing the rice noodles and bean sprouts, and some rather dry slices of beef. They also provided containers with a lime, some jalapeno slices and a sprinkling of cilantro. They also provide little cups of Sriracha and Hoisin sauces to mix in. As a quick soup, this was OK, but from reading about pho, I expected a spiced beef broth as a base.

The soup dumplings were OK but a a bit tough.

The dumplings at the Ren Dumpling and Noodle house are tenderer, when they are available.

So, I went the following week to the Mecha Noodle Bar on Washington Street in Norwalk. Mecha Noodle Bar is a small chain: they have restaurants in Fairfield, Norwalk, Stamford, New Haven, West Hartford, CT and Brookline, MA, Boston, Columbus, OH and Denver, CO. But here, you can get pho, pho sure! They offer five versions, as well as Steam Bao, Hand Rolls, Ramen and Munchies. I ordered the Pho Bo Vien (with rare beef and meatballs) and an order of Sweet and Sour Spareribs. They also have an extensive drinks menu.

This is definitely where you should go to get pho as well as anything else on their menu. It was superb!
There was a container of spiced beef broth and a bowl of rice noodles, topped with the meatballs and rare (raw) beef, that cooks when you pour the hot broth onto it. The result is shown at the top of the article.

But, while Mecha offers takeout, they suggest that these dishes are better fresh at their tables, and that’s what I’ll do next time. I’m looking forward to it!