I think it’s lovely to make your own tomato paste! It takes some time, but it’s worth it.
Taken advantage of when twig tomatoes cost 9.90 kilos at Sollentuna Gross (Tingsvägen, Sollentuna). It may not be worthwhile to make your own tomato puree if the price per kilo is higher. Came home with about 20 kilos, 10 kilos would be dried, and 10 kilos would be tomato puree. It sounds like a lot, but 10 kilos of tomatoes gives about 700 grams of tomato puree; it was not more than that 😊
Ingredients
10 kilos (20 pounds) of tomatoes
2 – 3 tablespoons of sea salt
Method:
- Start by washing the tomatoes thoroughly. As a rule, I have some lukewarm water and a few tablespoons of bicarbonate that I dissolve in the water. Then put in the tomatoes or other vegetables for that matter and let it rest for about 10 minutes before I rinse off properly and let it dry for a while.
- Remove leaves and the hard stem.
- Cut the tomatoes into smaller pieces.
- Place the tomatoes on a tray and salt with sea salt, mix well and then transfer them to a large colander or several small ones. Put the colander again on a tray with edges, cover, and let rest for 3 – 5 hours. Pour off the liquid that has accumulated on the plate and transfer the tomatoes to a large saucepan. My 20 pounds of tomatoes needed a 2,6-gallon saucepan.
- Bring to a boil over low heat, stirring occasionally. When the tomatoes are covered with liquid and very soft, they are ready for the next step.
- Run it in a blender or food processor. Strain and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Do not throw away what is left – we will rerun it in the strainer. Yes – as you may notice in the video, you put it in the kitchen when making tomato puree!
- Put the pan on the stove again, low heat, and let it simmer slowly for at least 7 hours. It is not a disaster if you do not have time to do the whole process one day. You can continue the next day.
- The puree is ready when there are traces when you draw a line through the puree and that it does not flow back.
- When it starts to approach the end, you can heat the oven to 120 degrees and put glass jars and lids in the oven for about 10 – 15 minutes. Pour hot tomato puree into hot glass jars.
- Cover with a towel and let it cool slightly at room temperature before filling with olive oil and putting on the lids.
Store in a cool place, but keep the open jar in the refrigerator.
You can season the tomato puree with herbs, etc. – but I personally prefer to have a raw tomatoes paste with no other seasoning than salt. This gives me the freedom to season, depending on the food that I am making.
Enjoy!
