WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU TOMATOES JUST SAY THANK YOU!!
I LOVE YOU FROM MY HEAD TO-MA-TOES
There was a huge difference between the taste, flavor, and aroma of the homemade tomato puree and the shop-bought puree.
The homemade TOMATO PUREE is full of tomato goodness, there is no pastiness and no excess sugar.
A handy jar of Tomato Purée is super helpful when making any tomato-based dish. Here, we will show you how to blanch tomatoes and then purée them to help preserve your summer harvest.
Tomato Puree is simply blanched or cooked tomatoes that are blended to a fine consistency and later strained with or without the addition of salt.
If you have an excess of tomatoes and do not know what to do, my easy suggestion is to purée them and freeze them in ice cube trays.
Add the frozen tomato purée cubes to any dish where tomatoes are an essential ingredient, including pasta, sauces, curries and so much more!
This tomato purée is made without any preservatives, so the shelf life is about 12-15 days in the refrigerator and 3- 4 months in the freezer.
Pour homemade tomato purée into a sterilized glass jar. To sterilize the jar, boil the jar and lid in hot boiling water for 5 minutes.
It is very easy to make homemade tomato purée. All you need are some fresh tomatoes and a pot of boiling salt water to make it. Feel free to use any type of tomatoes so long as they are ripe.
Depending on the type of tomatoes, the consistency of the puree will be thin or thick.
Use ripe, red, and meaty tomatoes which yield a thick purée.
Ingredients for Tomato puree
Steps for Tomato puree
Tomato puree
Ingredients
2 & 1/2 KG Tomatoes Beetroot
2 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Vinegar
Steps
Take 2 & 1/2 kg of tomatoes. Take red, big, riped and fleshy tomatoes.
For making tomato puree we do not need juicy tomatoes, we need fleshy and ripe tomatoes.
First, rinse the tomatoes very well. Cut the upper stem side roundly of all tomatoes.
Using a paring knife or a small knife, make a ½ inch criss-cross cut on the base of the tomatoes.
A secret ingredient by using it our tomato puree will turn red in colour without adding any food colour. Which is a beetroot and add to the puree for a nice red color.
For 2 & 1/2 kg of tomatoes, use 1 beetroot, if you are using less tomatoes then add 1/2 beetroot that will be sufficient.
Cut the beetroot into small pieces, grind it in a mixer into a paste, add water if necessary.
Keep the paste aside.
Take a large pan and heat water in it. The water should be enough for the tomatoes to be immersed.
We took 3 litres of water for 2 & 1/2 kg of tomatoes. Make sure the tomatoes have space to move and are not overcrowded in the pan.
Add all the tomatoes to the boiling water, boil them for 5-6 minutes on high flame.
You will see that after boiling for 5-6 minutes, the skin of the tomatoes is peeling automatically from the criss cross cut side at the base.
Off the flame and remove all the tomatoes one by one and transfer them in a bowl of cold water. Use cold fridge water for better results.
When cool down remove the tomatoes from the cold water and peel them. You will see they are easily peeled.
Now put all the tomatoes in a big pan and add the beetroot paste to it, then blend it with a hand blender or you can grind them in a mixer. Do not add any water to it just grind it and make a fine puree .
We have a grind the beetroot before because we used a hand blender, if you are grinding it in a mixer you can blend them together.
Strain the tomatoes using a strainer.
While straining, stir with a spoon and press the pulp while stirring so that all the purée and pulp is strained leaving only the seeds in the strainer. Discard the seeds.
You will see a lovely red tomato purée collected in the bowl .
Keep this puree for cooking, use a steel utensil if possible
Cook it on high to medium flame for 12-15 minutes, keep stirring in between.
After cooking it for 15-20 minutes the Puree will turn thick and give a nice red colour.
Check if the puree coats on the spoon if it is then its done
Lets season the puree by adding 2 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon sugar, mix it and let the sugar and salt melt.
Cook on medium flame for 2-3 minutes, keep stirring and then off the flame.
Add 1 teaspoon vinegar to the puree, by doing this your Puree will remain fresh and will be prevented from getting stale for a long time.
The reason why we added sugar is because vinegar is sour in taste so by adding sugar the taste will be balanced. Add vinegar after turning the flame off
So now let it cool down. Citric Acid also can be added instead of vinegar.
If you do not want to add vinegar you can make this puree without it and can store up to 15 days in refrigerator and if you store up them in the freezer you can store them for weeks.
Now you can store it in air tight glass container and freeze it.
You can also pour the purée in ice cubes trays for freezing, then cover the tray loosely with parchment paper or foil before freezing.
Once they are frozen, remove them and keep in an air-tight box or a sealed zip-lock bag in the freezer. Just pop the cubes in any dish.
If you like my recipes than do try and share your feedback and tag us on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube.
Points to Remember *Make sure you puree the mixture very well. If the puree is coarse then it will be difficult to strain the pulp. *If you want a thick puree like the readymade ones, then you have to cook it for longer until the tomato puree coats a spoon and remains like that. *Do check the taste of the puree once the cooking is complete. Add more sugar if needed.
Brighten up your recipes by adding this homemade tomato purée. Add this homemade tomato purée in any dish where tomatoes are mandatory or where you want to bring some tangy flavor to the food. You can easily replace the chopped tomatoes with tomato purée. Replace 1 medium-sized tomato with ¼ th cup of tomato puree. Got leftover tomatoes you want to use up before they go bad? Consider making homemade tomato purée. Tomato purée is made by lightly cooking and puréeing tomatoes. The result is a thick liquid that is used to form the base of tomato-based sauces and salsas.
