Condiments
Make tomato paste at home in the oven
The home method: reduce passata, then dry 4–6 hours in the oven into a spreadable paste. From 3 kg tomatoes you get 250–300 g.
Method
- Make passata from 3 kg of ripe plum tomatoes.
- Reduce the passata by half in a wide pot, about an hour, uncovered and stirring often.
- Spread the thick mass on a deep tray and keep drying it in the oven at 90-100 °C for 4-6 hours, turning and re-spreading it every hour, until a dark red, spreadable paste forms.
- Work in 2 % salt, press into small sterilised jars and seal the surface with olive oil. It keeps for one week in the fridge.
Minnelea products for this recipe
The preserves used in this recipe.
Six or seven hours of pot and oven yield about 250-300 g of concentrate. For flavour it beats any tube, but it is an enthusiast's project, not a stockpiling plan. The original Sicilian strattu is instead dried for days in the sun on wooden boards. If you want the function rather than the project, use tube concentrate as a neutral base or the sun-dried tomato paste, which adds flavour and tastes good on its own too.