Sweet, ripe, fleshy orbs of sunshine just beg to be bottled for darker days – think punchy pasta sauce, ricotta gnocchi pure white pillows peeping through a blanket of yellow or a warming tomato soup base.
These were a serendipitous find at the local greengrocers and just the type of tomato – fleshy with not really very much watery pip stuff – that lends itself to sauce, passata and puree making.I opted for simplicity for a pure colour and taste and roasted slowly and gently to concentrate the flavour.
The aroma of the tomatoes cooking like that is irresistible…an impromptu “warm roast tomato salad” with some aged sheep’s “telemea” (similar to feta) was somehow responsible for a lower production yield! Cook’s privileges and all that…
As this is a concentrated sauce I make it in small jars as well, that serve two as a pasta sauce.
Ingredients
for a modest 6-8 small (200-300ml jars) and a little warm roast tomato salad on the side!
- 2.5 kgs very ripe, fleshy large yellow tomatoes
- 3 small onions
- 6 cloves of garlic (more or less to personal taste. I add some pungent oil too in which I have garlic cloves macerating)
- olive oil to fry the garlic and dribble on the roasting tomatoes
- 3 tsp salt
- 1tsp white pepper (to maintain that very bright colour)
- 1 tbsp sugar (optional)
- 2 bay leaves broken into small pieces to add AFTER blending
How To
Roast the tomatoes. This can be done one day ahead.
Set your oven to 120C and prepare trays with foil or baking paper
Cut the tomatoes up into quarters or eighths depending on how big they are, cutting out the “woody” stalk area.
Peel and cut the onions roughly into halfs or quarters depending on how big they are
Place the tomatoes and onions on the prepared trays, dribble with olive oil and roast until cooked but not wholly dried.
Make the sauce
Finely chop or mince the garlic and fry very very gently. Do not burn it!
Add all the contents of the roasting tins – especially any roasting juices – the salt, pepper and sugar if using.
Blend or mash depending on whether you want a smooth or a chunky sauce
Add the bay leaf pieces
Canning
Ladle the sauce into sterilised jars (I use a solution of bicarbonate of soda) and screw the lids on tightly – do leave at least 1.5cm of airspace.
Place an old cloth in the bottom of your sauce pan and place the jars on top. Fill with water so it reaches approximately 3/4 of the way up the jars.
Boil for 45 minutes and leave to cool overnight before labelling and storing