How to preserve Tomato Puree

Cubes of Tomato Puree

Tomatoes are used in different form in almost all type of cooking. In Indian when the crop is good we can get them as cheap as Rs. 5/kg also and when not too good crops then the price goes up to Rs. 100/ kg also. For a common house hold it becomes very difficult to purchase such expensive tomatoes on daily basis, the budget goes for a toss else we have to compromise on taste and use less of tomatoes. For a person like me who consume 1/2kg tomato daily it more difficult to decide between purchasing or not. Well I think that must be the case of each and every house hold. Do not despair. Instead of compromising with taste or purchasing expensive tomatoes you can puree them and preserve in a way that it will remain fresh tasting and very easy to handle also, best part is the method does not involve in addition of any preservative/chemical. So why wait purchase the tomatoes till they are less expensive, preserve the puree and enjoy throughout the year. They come in handy when we are in hurry and want to fix a meal/soup fast.

Preparation Time: 10 min.

Cooking Time: 10 min.

Ingredients Required For Making Puree:

• 1 Kg. Tomatoes

Red Ripe Tomatoes

• 1 Teaspoon Salt

• 1 Teaspoon Sugar

Directions For Making Puree:

• Wash and pat dry the tomatoes.

• Dice the washed and dried tomatoes.

Tomatoes diced after washing and pat drying

• In a pressure cooker put

• Diced tomatoes

• Sugar

• Salt

• Put the lid with weight on it

• Heat on high flame till pressure is built in the cooker, Lower the flame and cook for 2-3 minutes more.

• Let the cooker and its contents cool.

• Sieve the juices from the cooked tomatoes and grind the cooked pieces to fine paste.

• Mix the Sieved juices and the paste nicely to make homogenous mixture.

• Tomato puree is ready.

Directions to Preserve the Puree:

• Pore the tomato puree in the ice trays and keep in freezer till it solidifies to form solid cubes.

Tomato Puree Frozen to cubes in Ice Tray

• Remove the cubes from ice tray and store in container with lid and keep in freezer.

• Use the ice cubes as and when required.

Cubes of Paste of Cooked Tomatoes

How to use:

• Count the number of tomatoes before dicing. This way you will know 1kg/x number of tomatoes = y number of cubes.

• Just divide the number of cubes with the weight of tomatoes/number of tomatoes, you will get the weight/number of tomato /cube.

• Take the required number of cubes and add in boiling water/vegetable or mutton/chicken stock add herbs of your choice and salt.

• Boil till cubes dissolve and uniform liquid is formed.

• Add sugar if one desires and serve hot soup in a jiffy. Better than marked ready to make soup which are full of corn flour and additives/chemicals.

• For vegetable curries after the rest of the paste for gravies is made add the calculated number of tomato cubes and cook till they dissolve and make nice thick paste with rest of the ingredients.

• Add water according to requirement and give a boil.

• If onion-garlic-ginger cooked paste is made in bulk (

  http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.in/2013/11/onion-masala.html)

   and made to cubes then the work becomes easier. Just calculate the number of cube from each paste you want, put in a pan together and heat till they melt.

• Mix and cook for one or two minutes and add required amount of water, salt and spices gravy is ready for veg/ non-veg dishes.

Tips:

• Do not add water to cook the tomatoes they will get cooked in their juices.

• Do not leave the cooker for very long time on the heat tomatoes will get burned leaving bad taste and color to puree.

• Take ripe tomatoes as they have lots of juices and make best color puree.

Suggested Variations:

• Puree can be stored in a container without making cubes, but it becomes difficult to scoop the required amount from the frozen mass, also we will not be sure how much of tomato we are actually using.