{"id":4382,"date":"2018-03-14T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=4382"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:58:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:58:46","slug":"tomato-pie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/14\/tomato-pie\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia-Style Tomato Pie"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 14, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

Like many psychiatry residents, I used to moonlight to make extra money.<\/p>\n

The money was good and the work was usually not difficult.\u00a0 Many moonlighting jobs required being on-premises overnight.\u00a0 Most of the time, this usually just involved sleeping but, again, not always.<\/p>\n

One of my easier moonlighting jobs was at a private psychiatric hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs.\u00a0 I had to do the histories, physicals, and psychiatric evaluations on the newly admitted patients and then be available for any issues that came up during my shift.\u00a0 Usually I got to sleep all night.<\/p>\n

This was in stark contrast to one of my other moonlighting jobs at the crisis service that covered a swath of northeast Philadelphia.\u00a0 The patients were more acute and admissions unplanned.\u00a0 Sleep was elusive.<\/p>\n

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One morning as I was finishing up some work on one of the units at the private psychiatric hospital I spied a pizza box in the staff lounge, clearly intended for anyone who wanted to have some.<\/p>\n

I opened the box and was presented with my first tomato pie, basically a focaccia topped with a prodigious amount of a jam-like tomato sauce.\u00a0 There was no cheese and there were no toppings.<\/p>\n

I had never heard of tomato pie like this.\u00a0 Sometimes the term tomato pie was applied to a run-of-the mill pizza, usually by my Uncle Joe, but this was a whole different creation.<\/p>\n

Not only was it naked, except for the tomato sauce, the sauce was very dense (almost like tomato paste) and thickly applied to the dough.<\/p>\n

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Good quality tomato puree is essential for this sauce. I prefer imported Italian tomato puree, called passato (or passata) (both are correct) di pomodoro<\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Growing up, a regular mid-morning Sunday snack (after church and before our major meal of the day around 1:00 or so) was a bowl of my mother’s long-simmered tomato sauce that was almost always bubbling away on the stove on Sunday mornings and a stack of bread to dip into it.\u00a0\u00a0 Italian bread was preferred but I\u2019d make do with American \u201cslice\u201d bread if need be\u2026often six slices\u2026to hold me over until mealtime.<\/p>\n

Tomato pie was heaven-made for someone like me.\u00a0 It was bread and sauce in an easy-to-eat package.\u00a0 No bowl or dipping required.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s pretty astounding to realize that I had lived in Philadelphia for about 11 years before encountering my first tomato pie.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really understand why.\u00a0 Two of the bastions of Philadelphia tomato pie are on Ninth Street, an area that I started going to my freshman year in college.<\/p>\n

This article provides some interesting background on Philly-style Tomato Pie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a big fan of making dough for pizza and focaccia in my bread machine.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have a bread machine, use a mixer with a dough hook.\u00a0 Failing that, some elbow grease and a smooth kitchen counter will do the trick.<\/p>\n

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If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com<\/a> and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven\u2019t seen Bertha\u2019s Flan<\/a> or Melinda\u2019s Drunken Prunes<\/a>, take a look.\u00a0 They will give you an idea of what I\u2019m looking for.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Philadelphia-Style Tomato Pie<\/h2>\n
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Tomato Pie is a thick crust pizza dough topped with copious amounts of very thick tomato sauce. No cheese is put on the pie before baking. Some folks sprinkle grated Pecorino on the finished pie. It is usually served at room temperature. If the garlic taste in the sauce is too strong for you, the garlic can be saut\u00e9ed in a small amount of olive oil before mixing into the tomato puree mixture. It is best to make the sauce a day in advance and refrigerate it. If you don\u2019t have a bread machine, mix the dough in a mixer with a dough hook for about 10 minutes after the dough comes together. You can also mix it by hand which will give you a bit of an upper-body workout.<\/div>\n
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Prep Time <\/span>15 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>35 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>1 day<\/span><\/span> d<\/span> 50 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
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Servings: <\/span>20<\/span> pieces<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ingredients
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