Intro
Today I'll tell you how to make homemade tomato concentrate and passata. It's very simple but it takes a lot of time, so I would recommend you make more jars in advance, store it for the nearest half a year or longer and use a jar or two whenever you will need it.
Versions of concentrate and passata which are sold in the supermarkets are full of preservatives. It's artificially flavored and unhealthy. I do recommend you home-made concentrate instead.
You can use passata as the base for your sauces, to the pizza, or as the ready meal to eat with pasta.
Tomato concentrate works well with tomato soup, sauces, and homemade ketchup.
Ingredients:
🍅 Tomatoes
🍅 Salt, sugar
🍅 Oil
I used 8 kg of tomatoes and received 2l of Passata and 0.7l of tomato concentrate
Instruction:
1️⃣
Peel the tomatoes. To do it, burn it shortly in a hot water before. In that way, the skin will easily be removed from the tomatoes.
2️⃣
Boil tomatoes in the big pot. Watch out to not burn it. You can squeeze tomatoes a bit to release the juice from it and/or add few spoons of water. If you will add too much water, it will need much more time to be ready though.
3️⃣
Add 1 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp of salt for each 2-3 kg of tomatoes. Boil until at least 1/3 of the tomato juice will evaporate, mixing it from time to time, then blend it all with the blender.
Boiling should take 1-2 hours, depends what kind of tomatoes do you use. The best kind of tomatoes for passata and concentrate are the long ones, as they are much less juicy.
4️⃣
Prepare the jars and taps. Burn it in the hot water to sterilize it. Remember that jars that will not be perfectly clean will destroy your preserves.
5️⃣
Put the hot passata in the jars and close it well. Leave some part of tomatoes for the concentrate.
6️⃣
After closing the jars, pasteurize it for approx 30 minutes in the boiling water. Then put it upside-down until it will cool. If the jars are leaking, change the tap and close it well again. In that case, you have to repeat pasteurization.
7️⃣
Boil tomato concentrate for another 1-2 hours until the moment when the consistency of tomatoes satisfies you. Now you will have to mix it much more often, in the last half an hour constantly.
8️⃣
Put the concentrate in some small jars and add a spoon of oil on the top. It will help to keep concentrate humid as the oil will block access to the air.
9️⃣
Pasteurize the jars for 15-20 minutes in the boiling water but then do not turn it upside down to not mix to the oil with tomatoes.
It's ready.
Store it in a cool place, away from sunlight. It can be stored for up to one year but after opening the jar, keep it in the fridge and use it in 3 days.
All the photos included in the post belong to me.
Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati