After a whirlwind week of sauce-making and canning, I’ve myself a large heap of tomato skins.
Associated Studying: How To Simply Peel A Entire Load Of Tomato Skins
Usually, I’d simply toss them within the compost pile. However this yr I’ve determined to do one thing totally different. One thing that can stretch their usefulness even additional than recycling their vitamins into wealthy humus. One thing that shall be nutritious, save a bit of cash, and have far superior high quality and style than something you might buy on the retailer.
As a result of when life fingers you a bowl of tomato skins, you can also make tomato paste.
What’s tomato paste, precisely?
Tomato paste is, basically, a heavily-concentrated tomato sauce. Normally it’s made by cooking entire tomatoes on the stovetop, separating the skins and seeds with a meals mill or sieve, after which spreading the puree out on a deep cooking pan. The tomato pulp is baked within the oven till all of the water is evaporated and the sauce has a thick, paste-like consistency.
Tomato paste is such a flexible base ingredient that you simply’ll see it pop up in a large swathe of recipes – from stews, chilies, soups, and so, so many sauces – pasta sauce, pizza sauce, ketchup, curry, gravy, salsa, shares, marinades, and extra.
Because it’s concentrated, you solely want comparatively small quantities of tomato paste to impart deep and wealthy umami taste to the dish. You possibly can add tomato paste to thicken up something that already has some tomatoes in it.
Traditional tomato paste is made with out the skins. However, as is the case for thus many fruits and veggies, there’s a number of dietary worth in tomato peels. Tomato skins are excessive in carotenoids, particularly the antioxidants b-carotene and lycopene, which change into extra bioavailable when they’re heated through the cooking course of. Tomato paste enriched with simply 6% peels boosts the physique’s absorption of lycopene by 75% and b-carotene by 41%, in line with a small research out of France.
So it’s extremely worthwhile to include cooked tomato peels into your food plan wherever you possibly can. Utilizing up your tomato skins after canning is a straightforward method to do it.
Find out how to Flip Tomato Skins into Tomato Paste
Step 1: Dehydrate the Peels
When you’ve got a dehydrator, tomato peels ought to dry in about 8 to 10 hours at round 140°F. Be sure you double-check your dehydrator handbook for the right settings. (Our editor, Tracey, swears by this dehydrator.)
Should you don’t have a dehydrator, you should use the oven. Place skins on a baking sheet and set your oven on its lowest potential temperature setting. Drying at 145°F to 150°F will take roughly 8 hours. Flip the peels over on the midway mark.
For sooner outcomes, place a wire rack on high of the baking sheet for higher warmth distribution. At 145°F, tomato skins shall be totally dry in roughly 3 hours.
Tomato skins generally tend to stay to metallic racks or plastic dehydrator trays. Earlier than you lay them out, evenly grease the floor.
Drying will occur faster if you unfurl the peels so that they lie largely flat and don’t contact one another.
The peels are fully dry when they’re brittle, stiff, and crunchy. They shouldn’t be burnt or scorched.
Step 2: Grind into Tomato Powder
Place your dried tomato skins right into a blender or meals processor, tearing up bigger items first. Crush and pulse till you’ve gotten a superb consistency.
The ultimate product is extra flakey than powdery. However it’ll all meld collectively as soon as it turns into tomato paste.
Switch the tomato powder to a container. Add a pinch of salt and seal. Retailer in a cool, darkish place and it’ll preserve for a number of years. (You may as well make tomato powder with entire tomatoes.)
Step 3: Reconstitute into Tomato Paste with Water
If you’re able to make tomato paste, the final rule is to start out by mixing 1 half tomato powder with 1 to 2 elements water.
To make 6 ounces – or the equal of a small can – mix 6 tablespoons of tomato energy with ¾ cup of water.
Use scorching water when mixing the paste. Add it slowly, a bit of at a time, and mash it up with a spoon till you attain the specified thickness and texture.
Scoop it out and into your recipe instantly. Or put it aside for later. You possibly can portion tomato paste out in ice dice trays, freeze, and plunk all of them right into a freezer bag. Then you definately’ll have particular person doses of tomato paste cubes you possibly can drop into your subsequent meal on the fly.
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