SUN DRIED TOMATOES SANS THE SUN!

Making hay while the sun shines…? Well, I made sun dried tomatoes when the sun didn’t shine. Actually, the vegetable vendor had a bounty of the most luscious looking tomatoes one day… red, juicy & going cheap – Rs 10 a kilo (25 cents) for the beauties. Irresistible as usual, so I bought 2 kilos to make sun dried tomatoes, but the next 2 days were foggy & dreary as luck would have it, with worse weather forecast to follow. Back to the ever dependable net, & browsing led me to a simple recipe for ‘How to make sun dried tomatoes without the sun’ on Channel 4. I even got a chance to use some fresh herbs from the garden which were just beginning to sprout – thyme & oregano. The recipe worked well, & the tomatoes got made beautifully, but am guilty of a carbon footprint…

Next time, the Indian summer sun is going to bake trays of tomatoes for me, as summer is fast approaching. The recipe called for some fresh thyme & garlic cloves to the olive oil. I added some fresh oregano sprigs too, with some pink & black pepper for taste, prior to dunking the sun dried bits in.SUN DRIED TOMATOES WITHOUT THE SUN

Red chili flakes (optional)

• Preheat the oven between 50-60C.
• Place the cut tomatoes on baking sheets lined with parchment, cut sides up, & drizzle liberally with olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper & Castor sugar.

• Place into the pre-heated oven & leave to dry for at least 7-8 hours or until most of the moisture has gone. Be careful to leave some moisture in them so they taste nice & juice when preserved. They should be roughly the consistency of raisins. If they are wet & sloppy, they are underdone; if they are dark & brown, they are overdone.
• When you think they are done, remove the tomatoes from the oven & leave to cool until they can be easily handled.

• While the tomatoes are cooling, you can sterilise the jar. Wash it in hot soapy water, & place it upside down in a preheated oven at 50C. After 10 minutes remove it form the oven & leave it to cool.
• Sprinkle a little salt & pepper into the jar, add the peeled garlic cloves, the thyme & the chilies/pepper.

• Place the tomatoes in the jar, & pour enough olive oil to fully submerge them. They should keep for six months in the fridge as long as they are always covered in oil.
• Note: There is a word of caution re home preservation of tomatoes in oil from Greg at the bottom of this post. Do take a look at it. Thanks.

I received a note from a blogger, Greg @ GregCooks (see comments on this post). He had some words of caution re home reservation of tomatoes under oil, particularly when you add herbs or garlic to them. Though most of us would use the sun-dried tomatoes in oil within a week or two, I think Greg has a valid point. In his words, “I would caution people, though, that it is not safe to store food under oil at home. Botulism is a serious concern with this method. Commercial producers have ways to sterilize everything under the oil that is not possible to do at home. Let me add a few more words about botulism which comes from a common soil-born bacterium called Clostridium botulinum. Unlike other types of bacteria, this one thrives in low oxygen conditions and low acid conditions such as being submerged under oil. Commercially items preserved under oil are heated to 121 °C (250 °F) to kill the bacteria. Although the tomatoes are less prone to grow botulism due to its acid levels it can happen. It is more likely that it could grow on the other ingredients in oil such as the herbs and garlic. A week or two should be fine but I wouldn’t keep them longer than that.I think a better way to store your tomatoes for longer term is to wrap them tightly in plastic without the oil and store them in the freezer.But I think your dish wouldn’t be a problem in my home! I would eat them too quickly! “. So to be on the safer side, if you intend to keep them longer, keep them wrapped in plastic in the feezer sans oil.