Homemade Sundried Tomatoes

I bought more than 2 kilos of fresh tomatoes recently. Carrefour was selling it at 50 cents per kilo. Yes, you heard me right. per kilo! I bought more than a kilo of it from Carrefour costing about 80 cents in total! Cheap! And two days before, I bought about half kilos of it at $1.20 per kilo from Sheng Shiong. So, what's with all the Tomatoes eh? Well, since they are so cheap, I wanted to make Sundried Tomatoes! Yummy Tasty Sundried Tomatoes that is very very expensive if you were to buy them by the bottles from the grocers. Because the tomato shrinks and yields little after the moisture is dried, the cost per small bottle is high. I love Sundried Tomatoes on toasts, salads, pastas and especially on pizzas! Tangy, Salty, Herby and natural sweetness... it's heaven!

Sundried Tomatoes, in it's most traditional and natural method is of course to dry it under the sun but it may take days and weeks before it is totally ready. Then again, you don't want to invite unwelcomed critters to your tomatoes either.

You will need to have netting and muslin cloth over it and make sure it dries under the sun. But in our warm and humid weather, there are risks of bacterial growth.

A conventional way of a similar and hygienic short cut method is to bake it in the oven, of course.

It takes about 4 hours to bake it in the oven but it's easy and I don't have to mind it except about halfway where you will need to turn it. All you need is just to cut the tomatoes in half, scoop out the seeds (leave the pulp) and season it. If your tomatoes are the beefy large tomatoes, its best to quarter them. I choose red ripe tomatoes from Carrefour. Just ripe and sweet for my Sundried Tomatoes. Best to make them when tomatoes are cheap and on sale. It takes about 10 standard of tomatoes just to get you an ounce of it!

Here is a simple method to make your own homemade Sundried Tomatoes

2 kg Ripe Tomatoes
2 tsp of Salt
2 tsp of Sugar
2 tsp of Mixed Italian Herbs

To store
Bottle
Olive Oil (optional)
Ziplock bags

Halve your tomatoes into 1/2 inch width. Scoop the seeds out just leaving the pulp. If you are using cherry tomatoes, just cut into halves. Drain the tomatoes off their juices if there are some. Place it skin side down on a shallow pan lined with aluminium foil.

Season the tomatoes with salt, sugar and herbs evenly.

Place it in the oven set to 100 deg C for about 4 hours or more with the oven door slightly ajar. About halfway through baking, turn the tomatoes skin side up. When the tomatoes are ready, it should be darker in colour and slightly flexible or leathery and will not snap or break when pulled. It should not be crispy either.

2 hours later, they start to shrink

4 hours later, they shriveled further. You can bottle it at this stage if you intend to use them fast or heat it another hour or two more.

Let it cool and store them in bottles drowned in Olive Oil or you can keep them without any oil in ziplock bags in the freezer as they can store for a long time. This way, when you have used up the ones in olive oil, just thaw them in the fridge and add more to the oil.

Two kilos plus of Tomatoes only yield a bottle and a bag of them. I soak the ones in bottle in olive oil but kept the one in ziplocks without to be kept in the freezer.

Sun Drying Method
After posted the above article, some of my readers asked me how does one do it naturally under the sun. Well, I've not tried the natural method because of the Singapore humid weather. It is very important that the humidity in your country is not as high as Singapore as the water in the air coupled with warmth may cause bacteria to breed fast and furious.

However, if you have a dry oven-liked weather in countries during Summer, you can try it out. Important is to lay a layer of 'cheesecloth' over the shallow tray of your tomatoes and netting over it, so that it keeps the critters away. I've read that some actually place it inside their car dashboard under the sun as the trapped heat in our car works wonders. It needs to be out in the sun and brought back into the house by sunset then in the sun again, the following days.

Depending how hot is your weather, you may need to do it for a minimum of 3 days till you achieve a dried tomato with a leathery feel, flexible. Remember to season it first of course. Hope it helps.

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