Saucing Tomatoes: General Methodology*
Overview: Cut, wash, blanch, cool and drain, process, funnel
into jars, water-bath (preserve).
Detailed method.
1. Get the blanching water ready and onto boil. Use a large/tall
saucepan.
2. Core/prepare (cut out any bad bits) and quarter the tomatoes.
If you’re using a blender method, you could also remove the
seeds and as much skin as possible if you want to.
3. (Optional) drop the quartered tomatoes into water to give
them a bit of a rinse.
NB. As soon as you have enough, begin to blanch, stain and
process the tomatoes in small batches. This eliminates
bottlenecks and long waiting times with idle hands.
4.
Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water. Many, small batches
tomatoes are much quicker and more effective, as the water
temperature in the saucepan drops each time you add the
tomatoes.
Alternative to Blanching: You can put all your cored and
quartered tomatoes in a saucepan and heat them over a low
heat without added water. Leave them until the skins are coming
away (about 20-30 minutes). Drain away or reserve the juice
from the tomatoes, but leave out of the sauces for a thicker
sauce.
5.
Scoop out and drain the tomatoes from the blanching
water and leave to drain and cool for 5-30 minutes. The longer
the better, but this is time/venue depended.
Drain the tomatoes leads to a sweeter, less water sauce. Water
doesn’t affect the quality of the sauce per say, as water can also
be drained off then the preserved passata comes to be used in
cooking.
6.
Process the tomatoes in whichever way you are using.
Make sure you catch the sauce in a large saucepan or bucket.
7.
Funnel into bottle up to 2cm below the top of the bottle.
8.
Screw on the lids and then loosen them off by a ¼ turn
(this allow air to escape and a vacuum seal to be created in the
water-bathing process.)
NB. It is advisable that once you have enough bottles filled and
ready to preserve, that you get them into a water bath
immediately, if time is a major consideration of a venue.
9. Line the bottle of a saucepan/vacola with a teatowel or thick
newspaper. Place the bottles in with more towels/newpaper
to avoid bottles knocking together.
10. Fill the saucepan/vacola with cold water up to at least ¾ of
the way up the bottles.
11. Bring to the boil (appox 45 minutes depending on the
system used, ie. gas) and then turn down to a gentle boil for 1
hour.)
12. Take out hot bottles VERY CAREFULLY (avoid steam
burns) or allow the saucepan to cool down for an hour or so.
Other processing options and considerations:
• You can use any method or recipe you wish too. You can
also add things to the fresh sauce, ie. A sprig of basil in the
bottom of each bottle.
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Do not water-bath the bottles (all or some) at the event most people are able to do this at home later.
Participants can take the fresh sauce and freeze it instead
Prepare and eat a meal/snack while you are waiting for
all/the last of the bottles to preserve.
Have an outdoor area set up with a dishwashing station.
This is generally better for clean up and if there is limited
space in the kitchen.
It’s good to change up what people are doing, ie. So those
blanching get a go at processing
*Methodology may vary depending on the method used to make
sauce or preserve tomatoes. also, this is just a guide. If groups
wish to follow a recipe or other method, they are very welcome!