pasta sauce with fresh toms-skin on or off?

ALIBOBSY

I usually make pasta sauces from tinned toms (if tom based obviously).

But after expanding our grow your own veg patch I have a glut of fresh toms. So I thought I could use some up in a cooked down tom sauce to freeze ready to use later.

Many cookbooks and online recipes suggest you use boiling water to take off the skins first,but do I really need to?
When making tom soup I don't bother as it will get blasted in the liquidiser, but is it an issue or are chefs just being "cheffy" about it.

What do everyone else do with theirs?

ali x

shebangs

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lizzyb1812

Nope, neither do I. Some claim the skins are "indigestible" - that just means they are not digested and pass through you, not that they are bad for you.

Pink.

Hi ALIBOBSY

It will depend on the texture of your finished dish. I use homegrown tomatoes to make tomato soup (recipe here) and tomato sauces for pizza and pasta, but as I blend it with a stick blender I don't bother to remove the skins as they blend down well and I believe the skins are full of nutrients.

On the other hand if you want to pass your sauce through a sieve or serve it without blending, then perhaps it may be better to remove the skins. It's down to personal choice really.

Pink

Alli135

Hi

I made my pasta sauce by taking out the seeds and chopping - I left the skins on! My husband is fussy and he is eating it now - so it must be OK!!!

alex21

Leave the skins on. Life is just too short:D

Hobsons_Choice

Strange I should read this : I've just eaten pasta with a tomato sauce made with our own small toms (we have a glut right now) and some basil from the plant in the greenhouse. Left the skins on - as Alex says life's too short - and the sauce was delish.

lostinrates

skin on...for the fibre content not laziness


Fibre is good (I've imagined there is more fibre in the skins, I don't KNOW it.), most of us eat too little, and a fresh tomato sause takes as long as it takes pasta to cook, why make a quick, simple, fresh and healthy meal less good and fussier?

adelight

I assumed it was down to personal preference. I prefer skins on, more texture. I pierced toms with a fork and then put them in a pan with onion and garlic, after five minutes they go all wilty and yummy but still tomato shaped.

ALIBOBSY

Thanks for all the replies, like hobson (love that film-my Dad watched them filming it near where he lived as a child) alot of my toms are small-just lots of them so much easier to chop and use as they are tha fiddle around peeling little ones.

So looks like a tom soup/pasta sauce session tommorrow for me lol.

Ali x

katieowl_2

I've just made some chutney for which the tomatoes need to be peeled, I've made it loads of times, and always faffed about boiling kettles of water and pouring it over toms in a bowl. I had a 'DUH!' moment last year when it occured to me that I could simple have a pan of boiling water on the go on the stove next to the preserving pan, and dip the tomatoes in batches - soooooo much quicker.

The tiny ones I dip in, fish out with a slotted spoon and don't peel as such, I squeeze them and they just pop out of their skins and straight into the pan! (Mind your fingers though. My nickname is asbestos fingers!_

Kate