When you have access to an abundance of fresh tomatoes either from your home garden or a market sale, try making your own tomato paste. The process is easy, but a bit time consuming. The resulting paste can be frozen or stored in the refrigerator for a several months. This page contains a detailed process for making your own tomato paste.
Store bought tomato paste is quite tempting but the ingredients used to preserve it is very harmful to our body, so why not make tomato paste during the sale season and preserve it for the next 9 months in freezer? You can use it as and when required. You can use it in gravies, sauces, and quick chutneys.
Total Time: 5 hours
Yield: 400g
Ingredients:
5 kg tomatoes
5 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
4 tsp salt
Steps:
Wash tomatoes and put them in a tub of water with 2 tsp. salt. I used Roma tomatoes, and there were nearly 60 medium sized tomatoes.
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After an hour remove the tomatoes from the water and keep them on a clean kitchen towel in order to remove excess water.
Next cut each tomato in 8 pieces.
In a big vessel put 5 Tbsp of oil on medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the cut tomatoes.
After about half an hour, you will see the tomatoes begin to soften. Stir it a bit.
After another half an hour switch off the stove.
Remove the tomatoes along with the juice into a colander. Mash it up nicely.
Put the strained mixture back into the vessel.
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Switch on the stove and let it cook. Add vinegar and salt to it.
The mixture will take nearly 3 hours to reduce. Make sure to stir and scrape the bottom of the vessel often, as the tomatoes burn easily.
The reduced mixture will be dark red and stiff. The process of reduction will be messy as the mixture splatters as it reduces. Be careful and don't burn yourself.
Once done. Cool down the paste and put them in jars or freeze in ice cube trays. This way you can remove as many cubes you want and use it in your dishes.
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If you are putting them in jars, make sure the jars have small mouths which can fit a teaspoon. Once you have filled them, warm some oil and pour it on top of the paste. This way you can refrigerate it as long as 3 months provided there is always a layer of oil on top of the paste. Frozen paste can be used up to 9 months.
