Tomatoes are used in cooking often. To give the dishes a pleasant sour taste, they are added to stews, soups, sauces, and other foods. If you prepare a tomato puree for the winter, he will definitely find a use. Such homemade preparations will save the family budget in the cold season, when tomatoes and canned food made from them are not cheap.
Cooking Features
To make tomato puree for the winter can be from tomato juice or pulp, even from the cake left over from cooking other canned goods. Knowledge of several features of the technology will save you from errors and will provide the expected result.
- Tomato puree for the winter can be prepared by freezing or canning. The first method is the easiest: chopped tomato flesh is laid out in cleanly washed containers or ice molds, sent to the freezer. If the mash is made from oilcake, it is laid out in cells and poured with cold boiled water - a teaspoon per cell, then also removed in the freezer. After hardening, the cubes of tomato puree from the containers can be shifted into the bag, but it will have to be left in storage in the freezer. If you do not have a special freezer and you store food in the freezer of the refrigerator, it is not rational to keep it frozen in a mashed potatoes;
- When canning tomato puree, use only clean dishes. Banks under it is not enough to wash - they must be sterilized. The lids are also sterilized, usually by boiling. It is necessary to close mashed potatoes with metal lids to ensure tightness; plastic ones will not cope with this task.
- In order for the tomato puree to have a smooth consistency, the tomatoes are cleaned of skins before chopping. To do this, the fruit is notched crosswise and dipped in boiling water. After 2 minutes, they must be removed with a skimmer and put into a container with cold water. After this procedure, remove the skin is not difficult.
- Tomato pulp will have an even more delicate texture if rubbed tomato pulp through a sieve. This will get rid of not only the skin, but also from the seeds.
- For the preparation of tomato puree, you should choose fleshy vegetables, otherwise the puree will be too liquid or it will come out a little. From the immature tomatoes make mashed potatoes will not work. They must be ripe or even overripe, but not spoiled.
- Tomato puree can be prepared for the winter with the addition of sugar, salt or without them. Without adding these products, mashed potatoes are kept worse; they can only be kept in a cellar, basement or similar cool place. Puree of tomatoes, closed with salt, can stand at room temperature.
- For better preservation, the jars with the ready tomato puree are turned over and covered with a blanket, leaving to cool in the conditions of a steam bath.
Spices are not usually added to tomato puree, but you can put them according to your taste.
Tomato puree without salt and sugar
Composition (for 3-3, 5 l):
- tomatoes - 4 kg.
Preparation Method:
- Wash the tomatoes, let them dry.
- On the side opposite to the stem, cut each fruit crosswise.
- Boil water, dip the fruit in it, blanch for 2-3 minutes.
- Catch the tomatoes with a skimmer and put them in a container filled with clean water.
- Peel cooled tomatoes. Cut them into large slices, remove the seals in the stalk area.
- Grind tomato pulp to puree, using a meat grinder or blender. With the grinder process will go a little faster. Its use will allow to get mashed potatoes of a slightly smoother consistency, as it grinds sunflower seeds much better than a blender.
- Sterilize the jars and their lids.
- Place the tomato mass in a saucepan, put it on a slow fire. Bring to a boil and cook for 15-25 minutes, depending on how thick the mashed potatoes you want to cook.
- Pour the mash over the prepared jars, roll them up.
- Turn the cans over, cover with a blanket, leave for a day in this form.
After a specified time, jars of tomato puree can be returned to the normal position and carried to a cellar or other cool place.
Tomato puree with salt
Composition (3 liters):
- tomatoes - 4 kg;
- salt - 40 g.
Preparation Method:
- Pour boiling water over tomatoes, peel. Cut seals in the stalk area.
- Cut tomato pulp into slices or cubes, grind to a mash with the help of kitchen appliances (blender, meat grinder).
- Place mashed potatoes in a saucepan, add salt.
- Bring to a boil over low heat and boil for 20 minutes. If foam appears on the surface, remove it.
- Pour the mashed potatoes into prepared jars (washed with soda, sterilized). Hermetically cork them.
- Place the cans upside down, cover with a blanket. Leave in this form until cool.
The tomato paste prepared according to this recipe can be stored at room temperature, but only until the can is opened. Mashed potatoes after uncorking the container must be consumed within 3 days. Store the billet after opening only in the refrigerator. It is convenient to close the tomato puree in small volume jars, otherwise there is a risk of not having time to use the product before it deteriorates.
Gentle tomato puree with salt and sugar
Composition (for 2, 5 l):
- tomatoes - 4 kg;
- salt - 30 g;
- sugar - 30 g.
Preparation Method:
- Wash tomatoes, dry, cut in half, chop on a grater.
- Wipe the resulting mass through a sieve so that the puree has an even more delicate texture.
- Add sugar and salt, mix.
- Over low heat, heat the mash to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.
- Pour the puree over the sterilized jars, roll up.
- Leave to cool upside down under a blanket.
The mashed potatoes prepared according to the above recipe can be stored at room temperature. It tastes good. It can be eaten with spoons or used to make juice. To do this, it is enough to dissolve the puree with boiled water. To make puree even more expressive taste and aroma, you can add dried basil, parsley or celery, black and red pepper to it. Put these ingredients in a puree after it boils. The rest of the technology of cooking canned food remains the same, the addition of spices does not affect the storage conditions either.
Tomato puree - demanded in cooking product. It is added to a variety of foods, based on it is preparing sauces. It is an alternative to fresh tomatoes and tomato paste. Some like to eat tomato sauce with spoons. Making mashed tomatoes for the winter makes sense regardless of gastronomic preferences.
