Dried Tomatoes - cheating the sun with an oven

madmum33

I found this site, you could follow the instructions but only dry the tomatoes for a few hours. They look delicious!!!

http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/2006/10/tomato_confit_o.html

chloecc

I just used Nigella's recipie last night and they were gorgeous - you slice baby tomatoes in half and place them mid-section facing upwards(i used a whole punnet), drizzle over them a teaspoon of brown sugar, some rock salt, olive oil and thyme. Pre-heat your oven to gas mark 7 (so for about 20 mins) - i did it before i went to bed last night then put the tomatoes in and turn the oven off.

In the morning you will have gorgeous sun-blushed tomatoes, yum yum, i'm having mine with spaghetti tonight!!

jinny

I have a lot of tomatoes rescued from a friend who was going to throw them away. I remember seeing tomatoes being dried in an oven just like sun dried. Does anyone have any ideas how to do this? Thanks in advance.

shammyjack

Sngle layer on trays,make a small cut in top of each to let out moisture, lowest heat setting and oven door slightly open to stop burning .

shammy

jinny

Thanks for that will give that a go

Pink.

Hi Jinny,

There's an older thread on oven drying tomatoes so I've merged your thread with it to keep all the replies together.

Pink

custardy

for me in my chefy days.

blanch and skin the tomatoes
cut into quarters and deseed(could leave them in i suppose)
lay the quarters onto a clean dish towel
then transfer to a metal tray
place a fine slice of garlic on each tomato piece
season with salt and pepper
place a sprig of fresh thyme on each or sprinkle fresh picked thyme leaves if you prefer
apply a little olive oil onto each piece
lightly dust with icing suger

place in a low over,warm airing cupboard or the like.
once nicely dried (but still moist) you can store in oil or use them as is
if you want them for a little more fine garnish then you can roll each one into a cylinder shape

briddo

Here's a recipe that i use regularly and the result tastes exactly like the ones you buy in the market, so succulent and intense in flavour. Bear in mind, when roasting tomatoes, that if you want that real intensity which sun blush tomatoes are known for, you will have to cook them for a very long time at a very low temperature. Really, all you are doing is drying out the tomatoes ready for marinading.

Preparation time: 24 hours (including marination)

Ingredients:

- ripe & red plum/egg tomatoes sliced into 10ths segments

For marinade:

- glass/ceramic (important) mixing bowl
- large (pint-size) glass jar(s) with lid(s)
- sunflower oil
- garlic
- dried oregano

Method:

1) Arrange all the tomato segments onto a large ceramic baking dish, skin-side down so the flesh is pointing upwards

2) Do not add any other ingredients or fats to the tomatoes, they will roast beautifuly by themselves! Place the baking tray into your COLD oven. Turn on the oven to 70 degrees C (160 F) because we don't want the fluid in the tomatoes to boil and destroy the flavour! Roast the tomatoes at this temperature for as long as it takes for the tomatoes to become nearly completely dry and shriveled up (usually a good few hours).

3) While the tomatoes are slowly drying out, estimate how many pint jars you will be able to fill with dried-out tomatoes for marinading, remember the tomato segments will be a lot smaller when they have finished drying out. For each pint jar's worth of tomatoes, chop 5 cloves of garlic very finely and mix with 1/3 pint of sunflower oil and 3 tsp of dried oregano.

4) When tomatoes are very nearly completely dried out, remove them from the oven and mix with the marinade in the ceramic/glass bowl until the dried segments are completely soaked in the marinade. Then pour the tomatoes + marinade into glass jar(s) and seal. Leave your new sunblush tomatoes marinading in the jars overnight in a cool place.

5) Open jars after at least 12 hours of marination and sample your new creation - you won't be disappointed...

sandy2_2

briddo wrote: »

Here's a recipe that i use regularly
For marinade:
- sunflower oil

Would olive oil be OK to use and can you use the same recipe for 'sun' dried red peppers

Sandy

briddo

Would olive oil be OK to use and can you use the same recipe for 'sun' dried red peppers

Olive oil is a bit too rich for this marinade. With just sunflower oil, the garlic and oregano are brought out more. In commercially sold "sun blush" tomatoes, "sun blush" is a trademark - the tomatoes are not really "sunned" or "blushed" but are slow roasted to dry them out. You could use peppers instead of tomatoes I guess but tomatoes are my personal favourite! Oh yeah, and the longer they are left to marinade, the richer they will taste (i usually go for a minimum 12 hours).