February and March are what many gardeners know as the time
of the tomato glut. You’ve gone from squirting juice and seeds down your
front as you munch on tomatoes while standing in the garden, to trying every tomato
recipe under the sun, to sighing at that last five kilo box of tomatoes on your
floor that’s attracting an unholy swarm of vinegar flies.
For me, this means hosting my own miniature La Tomatina festival in my kitchen as I squish, crush, blend and spatter tomato into various forms that
can be enjoyed throughout the year.
There are various ways to preserve your harvest, including:
Freezing: simply enclose
several tomatoes in a zip lock bag and pop in the freezer. Once you defrost
them, the skins will simply peel off and the tomato will be perfect for
cooking.
Passata: there are
a thousand recipes out there but my way is possibly the laziest easiest.
I blanch, peel and de-seed the tomatoes by hand, then cram them into jars, screw
the lids on tightly and boil them for a while in a large saucepan of water to cook
and preserve them. That last part is important – the first time I made passata
I left the tomatoes raw. Three days later, they had forced off the lid and a
pongy liquid was found foaming its way across my pantry.
Pasta sauce: I
love making my own pasta sauce – it’s organic, tastes so much better and is so
much healthier than commercial varieties, and I can up the garlic quotient as
much as I like. Some commercial pasta sauces have up to nine teaspoons of sugar
per jar – my recipe comes in at under a teaspoon per jar. Roma and San Marzano
are the traditional choices of tomatoes but anything home-grown will be
delicious. If you can’t grow your own, loiter around your local markets near
closing time and you’ll probably be able to pick up a few kilos at bargain
basement prices.
Diana’s spectacular roasted tomato sauce
Pre-heat the oven
to 160 degrees Celsius (fan-forced).
Halve the
tomatoes and lay them skin side down on baking trays.*
Drizzle
extra-virgin olive oil then lightly sprinkle a pinch of sugar over the top of
the tomatoes to counter the tomatoes’ acidity and boost their flavour. I use
coconut palm sugar as it has an amazing caramelly flavour, but brown or white
sugar will do. Scatter dried herbs over the top – I use my own oregano and thyme –
then toss several unpeeled cloves of garlic into each tray.
Roast for around 45
minutes then let cool. Set up a large saucepan, and a sieve over a bowl.
Peel the skins
off the tomatoes – they should just slip off – and toss the skin in the sieve
and the tomato in the saucepan. If you don’t want the seeds in the sauce, just
empty them into the sieve as well. Squeeze the lovely, mellow caramel insides
of the garlic cloves into the saucepan and discard the peels.
Pour any excess
liquid into the bowl, and squeeze out the tomato skins in there as well to get
the last of the juices out before you compost them. What you now have in the bowl is a gorgeous, rich,
clear(ish) tomato stock; the perfect base for soup, risotto, quinoa, or just
about anything else you use stock in.
Mash the tomatoes
- I like my sauce chunky so I usually use a potato masher, but a stick blender
gives a great smooth result. Bring the sauce to the boil.
Ladle the sauce
into clean glass jars, right up to the brim, and tightly screw the lids on. At
some stage during the next couple of hours you may hear a satisfying pop as the
vacuum kicks in and the lid depresses, but don’t worry if you don’t.
* If you have a glut of any other
summer vegies, add them to the sauce too. Just roast and blend them along with
the tomatoes. Last year I made a fantastic sauce that also included eggplants,
capsicum and zucchini. This year my eggplants barely qualified as a crop and I’m
yet to taste my first capsicum, so it's strictly tomatoes in the sauce.
This sauce will last for at least a year – I’m still eating
last summer’s jars – if not more. Store it in the pantry and enjoy with
spaghetti, in lasagne or whenever the excuse arises.
 |
| Two batches of sauce - one with and one without seeds - and a bottle of the magical tomato stock. |
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