Sauce – How to make mint sauce

For something like a drink, I generally bruise the mint and use the whole leaves fresh - rub it between your fingers a bit to release the oils and then just drop it in the drink. The main benefit of this method for me is that a bunch of dry, crumbled mint in a drink is going to make it look very muddled and hard to drink, as you're constantly getting a mouthful of dried leaves (you could get around this by steeping it with the dried herbs and then straining it, but that's too much work!). As a bonus, fresh picked herbs in a nice glass of lemonade, for example, just looks so fresh and tasty!

If I'm cooking with it and I have a supply of fresh on hand, I prefer to use that. Depending on the dish, it might be whole leaves, but more likely chopped - I actually use kitchen scissors for a lot of fresh herb preparation as it can be easier than a knife in many cases.

You certainly can dry it, especially at the end of season when you need to harvest, and use the dried leaves in place of fresh. The main benefit to drying is that it stores really well; dry also seems to be a bit more powerful, at least when first dried. Over time the flavor of dried herbs will degrade. You usually use a 3 to 1 ratio replacement - if a dish calls for 1 tablespoon of fresh mint, you'd use 1 teaspoon of dried, though as the dried herbs age you'll have to increase the amount used over time.

I can give you the Italian answer - first of all, normally we don't use tomato paste to make sauce, but rather to add a tomato "kick" to recipes. Tomato paste is simply tomato puree that has been cooked down to a high degree of concentration.

A basic tomato sauce is made by

1. making a soffritto with onion, carrot and celery (plus other flavors)
2. adding tomato puree, or "pelati", more rarely fresh tomato
3. cooking the sauce down until the taste and thickness is what you want

If you want to use paste instead of puree, the third step has to be omitted or greatly reduced in duration. Keep in mind that tomato paste has its own taste, and that taste will remain in the final sauce.