Tomato paste is used to prepare sauces, dressings, and borscht. If the portions of the dish are small, then, as a rule, not the entire can of tomato is used, so you have to put it in the refrigerator until needed again. But sometimes, when removing the jar, it turns out that the product is covered with mold and is no longer suitable for consumption.
We recommend reading: What happens if you eat mold?
Making tomato paste at home using a meat grinder
Another delicious and simple recipe for preparing tomatoes for the winter. To prepare it you will need as many tomatoes as you want. And for better taste, the author of the recipe recommends adding red bell pepper.
Ingredients
- Tomatoes – 7 kg
- Sweet bell pepper – 6 pcs.
- Salt – 1 tbsp. l.
Preparation
Step 1. Vegetables need to be washed, cut out their stalks, remove the seeds from the pepper and cut the vegetables into small pieces.
Step 2. Pass the vegetables through a meat grinder
and pour the mixture into 2 containers. Add half a tablespoon of salt to each of them and mix.
Step 3. Place the pots over high heat and bring to a boil. As soon as boiling begins, reduce the heat a little and place an iron sieve with small holes on top of the pan. And you can immediately see how liquid collects in the sieve. It needs to be carefully collected with a ladle or spoon in order to reduce the cooking time, and the workpiece will be thick.
The liquid turns out almost transparent, there is no need to pour it out, you can simply drink it, add it to borscht, or use it as a filling for canning tomatoes.
Step 4. After 40 minutes, almost 4 liters of liquid had collected. Collect the puree into one pan. There are seeds left in it. If you are not satisfied with them, then you can grind the puree through a sieve with small holes or beat it with a blender, then the mass will be more homogeneous. From this moment, reduce the heat to low and cook for another 10-15 minutes, stirring constantly.
Step 5. Place the hot paste into sterile jars, cover with boiled lids and immediately seal. Wrap the jars and leave them until they cool completely.
Or spread the cooled puree into 2-3 tbsp. l. (i.e. one serving) into small bags, close them tightly, put them in a common bag and put them in the freezer for storage.
The optimal ratio of paste and water to obtain tomato juice
- Tomato juice tastes best if it is made thick by diluting a glass of tomato paste with 3 glasses of water. That is, the ratio used here is 1:3, if measured by volume.
- For liquid juice, it is enough to take 25-35 g of tomato paste per 200 ml of water (this ratio is 1:10 by volume).
- If you like thick juice, take 100-150 g of tomato paste per 0.5 liter of water (or 200-300 g of paste per 1 liter of liquid). This ratio is considered standard. If you focus on volume, then these proportions are close to 1:5.
- If you need to get 1 liter of tomato juice, you can proceed as follows: dilute 6 tablespoons of tomato paste (150-200 g) with a glass of water, and then add some more water, bringing the volume to 1 liter. The ratio will be approximately 1:5.25 or 1:7 depending on how much paste you scoop into the spoon (heaped or not).
- Exactly a liter of juice will be obtained if a glass of tomato paste with a volume of 0.2 liters is diluted with water in the amount of 4 of the same glasses. The organoleptic qualities of the drink will also suit you, as it will be thick and rich.
To determine the required amount of liquid for diluting the paste, without measuring its volume, you need to know that one level tablespoon will contain 25 g of this product without a slide or 35 g with a slide. Only 20 g of water can fit in a tablespoon.
Homemade tomato paste with your own hands, just like in the store
During the harvesting season, it always takes a lot of time to prepare them. And if you are making such a preparation for the first time, then you want the recipe to be simple and easy. This recipe is from this category.
Step 1. Wash the tomatoes, cut out the stems and cut into pieces. We pass them through a meat grinder with a juicer attachment. This juicer is very convenient; it selects seeds and skins well and produces pure juice.
Step 2. Take a bag that is used in stores for packing sugar or flour. It is better to take it in a small size or cut off a part from it. Choose a bag so that its fabric is not thick. Place it in the sink and pour the juice obtained from the juicer there. Leave in this position for several hours so that the juice flows freely through the small holes in the bag into the sink.
The bag can be hung, for example, over a basin, and the resulting juice can then be used for the same preservation of tomatoes.
Step 3. After the juice has drained, a thick mass remains in the bag. Transfer it to a saucepan and place it on low heat to simmer further.
Step 4. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil. Cook the puree with constant stirring, otherwise the thick mass will burn to the bottom and spoil the taste of the finished paste.
Cook for 10-15 minutes, and then transfer to dry, pre-sterilized jars,
and immediately roll it up. We turn the jars over, then wrap them and leave them like that until the jars cool completely. The resulting tomato paste has a very beautiful color and is almost as thick as store-bought.
This method of preparing the product is suitable if you need to process a large number of tomatoes and you are, for example, in the country. In this case, place the fruits passed through a meat grinder into a large clean bag of sugar or flour, tie it and hang it on a tree for several hours. Place a basin under the bag where the resulting juice will drain from the bag. At this time, you can do other things or just relax. And if you are processing in a city apartment, then you can hang a bag of tomato mass by the handles of a mop, and place its ends on 2 stools. Place a container under the bag where the juice will drain.
When the juice has completely drained from the bag, transfer the finished mass to a saucepan, boil and roll into sterile jars.
Tomato paste for the winter - an easy way to prepare it
This recipe is quite simple; many housewives make tomato paste this way. Although preparing this recipe sometimes takes a lot of time, which is required to evaporate the liquid. Nevertheless, this is one of the most common ways of preparing the workpiece.
Step 1. Prepare the tomatoes: wash them, cut out the stem, cut them into pieces.
Sliced vegetables quickly release juice, so before putting them in a meat grinder, squeeze the liquid out of them with your hands. Look at how much of it is left, which would have taken a lot of time to evaporate. This way we will save time on cooking.
Then we pass it through a regular meat grinder and pour the mixture into a large saucepan.
If you have a lot of tomatoes, then it is better to divide the ground mass into 2 pans; the moisture will evaporate from a smaller quantity faster. We also advise you not to cover the pan with a lid during cooking.
Step 2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and sugar to each pan.
Stir and cook for about 1 hour over low heat. During the cooking process, be sure to stir the contents of the pan, otherwise the mass will burn to the bottom, and this should not be allowed under any circumstances.
Step 3. Before stirring again, remove any excess liquid from the surface with a spoon or ladle.
Step 4. As it is ready, the color of the finished tomato paste changes to a deeper red. After an hour, we look at the density, if the mass has thickened enough, then we transfer it to sterilized jars and immediately roll it up. We check the seal for tightness by turning the jars over onto their lids.
