Easy Homemade Tomato Puree
For those who don't have the time and courage to make tomato puree or juice by the traditional method (using a tomato press to squeeze the juice / paste with as little waste as possible) - I recommend this quick and very simple method. It was a great relief for me some years ago. I was in the countryside and I had to quickly preserve many kilograms of tomatoes in very little time. So, I put the food processor and the blender to work and this miracle puree came out. Although its texture is very pleasant, it still has small seeds and traces of tomato peel, but I assure you that few will notice. It's a very fast and good method to save some tomatoes that don't have a perfect taste, but you don't really want to throw away either, especially since in the winter we don't even find them!
It can be used for anything, like normal tomato bouillon. If you boil longer, it will have a denser texture. I make it more runny, and it's very good.
Be sure to follow all the steps. Each has its meaning and logic - chopping, boiling, blending, then preserving - in order to have a product as good and beautiful as possible.
Wash the tomatoes well.
Then core and cut into halves. Cut each half into 2-3 pieces - depending on how big the tomatoes are. If they are small, leave them halves.
Place the tomatoes in the food processor. Fill, but not to the top :)
Pulse until the tomatoes are crushed as finely as you can. At this stage, it's not even possible to get a very fine paste, but at least we crush them.
Pour the mashed tomatoes into a large saucepan and put the next batch in the food processor.
I crushed 5 kg of tomatoes in 3 batches. So, it's about how many tomatoes you have, but things are going fast anyway.
Then bring the pot to the boil, stir periodically. When it comes to the boil, make a low heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
It's important that the tomatoes are properly boiled and softened, to be able to blend them afterwards, as finely as possible.
Meanwhile, we have work to do. We wash and sterilize the jars. I prefer the oven. I place them on an oven tray and keep for 30 minutes at 120-150 degrees C.
Now that tomatoes have been cooking for 30 minutes, we can remove the pot from the heat. We'll start using yet another magic tool in the kitchen - the hand blender.
Pulse and insist as much as you can for a very fine and beautiful tomato juice.
This is what mine looked like in the end.
Return the pot over heat, but only to simmer the broth for 4-5 minutes.
After that, ladle the hot juice into sterilized jars. Fill the jars completely, leaving no space at all at the top.
Tighten the lids properly on the jars and place them upside down on a towel.
Let sit like this until they cool completely, then store in the pantry.
I already used this tomato sauce the next day for some sarmale (Romanian cabbage rolls). It was perfect and simple :)
Enjoy!
