Thomas Keller's Roasted Tomato Sauce

Saturday night Noah came over and we made Thomas Keller's roasted tomato sauce.  The original plan was to make his sauce, meatballs, and make our own pasta as well...  but you know, I got busy and tired and didn't feel like it.  So we just made his sauce, an easy meatball recipe (compliments of Giada), and whole wheat linguine.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures.  Here's a rough sketch of his recipe:

Roasted Tomato Sauce

2 Tbsp. canola oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped
2 leeks, chopped (white and light green)
4 garlic cloves, minced
Kosher salt
2 Tbsp. light brown sugar
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
2x 28oz - 32oz cans San Marzano tomatoes
Pepper
1 Sachet

Sachet
Cheese cloth
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove
10 whole pepper corns
2 sprigs thyme

Wrap all ingredients in cheese cloth and tie using kitchen twine.

1. In a decent sized, oven proof pot, roast the onion, fennel, leeks, and garlic with canola oil in a 350° oven for 45 minutes or until the onion starts to caramelize.  Add in your brown sugar and vinegar and stir to combine.  Put back in the oven for 20 minutes.

2. In the meantime, drain your tomatoes.  Cut them open and remove all the seeds (not as easy as it sounds...  allow a good 30 minutes if you're doing it yourself...).  Coarsely chop half of them and puree the other half in a food processor.

3. Stir them into your pot, drop in your sachet, and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Let roast for 1 1/2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.  Discard your sachet and serve on linguine.

This is the best tomato sauce I've ever made.  In fact, it may be one of the best tomato sauces I've ever had.  The only problem I found with it is that the recipe didn't make enough.  Next time I'd make a double, triple, or quadruple batch.  I'm thinking about doing this and bottling the leftovers.  So good.  Hope I don't get in trouble for posting the recipe.  It was just too good not to share.

-CJ