4 minute read
McDonogh's Secret Sauce
THE STORY BEHIND MCDONOGH’S SECRET SAUCE
Chef Mallory Staley leans over the 20-quart stainless steel pot on the stove in Roots Farm’s Culinary Kitchen slowly stirring the contents. The herbaceous scents of garlic and balsamic vinegar are the first clue that something delicious is cooking. Chef Staley is making another small batch of Roots Farm Pasta Sauce, a recipe that she and Farmer Sharon Hood perfected over the past three years and will begin selling in the fall.
The idea for a Roots pasta sauce began simmering several years ago as Hood considered new ways to give the tomatoes, grown and harvested by the McDonogh community, more purpose. That was the easy part. Determining the type of tomato and what other ingredients would result in a flavorful sauce with just the right color and texture was much more difficult. “We started with heirlooms and cherry tomatoes, but the sauce turned out orange,” Hood explains. Eventually, she says they figured out that the San Marzano variety had the color, taste, and texture they were looking for, and in the summer of 2022, they grew a bumper crop.
In the meantime, Staley, who was keenly aware of the steps necessary to have a product approved, began processing the tomatoes in jars, adding herbs and acidity to assure the proper PH levels. Then, they sent jars of tomatoes and tomato paste—the basis of the sauce—to Cornell University’s Food Venture Center for testing to ensure safety and stability. “We knew if we could store the tomatoes from our harvest, then we could utilize them for the sauce,” says Staley.
As they awaited approval, they began developing a recipe that would produce a tasty and memorable sauce. Staley says, “We had to find the right combination of things. I approached it in a scientific way where I broke out the acid, the sweet, and the finish. It was chemistry.” For weeks, the two tweaked, tasted, and rejected countless batches of sauce. Hood admits, “It was frustrating and at times we had to walk away.”
But they always came back to the table, eager to fine-tune the combination of ingredients and the exact process to yield the desired result. “At the end of the day, we wanted our sauce to be so good that you’d want to eat it right out of the jar with a spoon,” says Hood. In January 2022, they landed on the perfect pasta sauce. The feedback from family, friends, and local professional chefs has been what the two hoped for. “People say that they crave it,” Hood boasts.
Ten months later, they sent the sauce to Cornell for testing and soon after, began the approval process with the Maryland Department of Health, which scrutinized every step of production to ensure that the end product was shelf-stable. With the approval of the two regulators, Staley has begun production.
When Roots Farm Pasta Sauce makes its debut in September, much of the McDonogh community will have played a role in getting it to the shelf, from the first graders who planted the San Marzano seeds to the volunteers who harvested the ingredients that make the recipe unique. So what is the secret to the sauce? Some may say it’s the Roots tomatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic crops, while others argue it’s the drop of Roots honey added to each batch. Hood gives credit to Chef Staley saying, “This sauce happened because of Mallory’s passion for cooking, her creativity, and tenacity to make things happen!”
In keeping with McDonogh’s mission, a portion of the sale of each jar of Roots Farm Pasta Sauce will be donated to the Maryland Food Bank.
