How to cook sun-dried tomatoes without a dryer and preserve all their benefits
Sun-dried tomatoes are an excellent appetizer on the holiday table, coming to us from Mediterranean cooking. In these countries, tomatoes dried under the warm rays of sunny Italy, Spain and Greece have learned to be added to many dishes. Indeed, tomatoes can be included in the recipe for omelets and pilaf, soups and casseroles, meat and white bread, muffins, etc. It is important that the dried product retains a significant amount of substances beneficial to the human body: potassium, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium, calcium, saccharides and dietary fiber necessary for the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract.
Ingredients
For a 250 g jar of sun-dried tomatoes you will need:- Tomatoes – 1.5 kg.
- Garlic – 2 cloves.
- Vegetable oil – 70 g.
- Ground pepper.
- Favorite herbs.
- Salt.
Cooking sun-dried tomatoes without drying in the oven
1. Wash small, fleshy tomatoes, for example, the cream variety, cut in half and remove the place where the stalk is attached. Cut large tomatoes into 4 or more pieces, depending on the size of the fruit.
2.If desired, the watery core of the tomato can be removed with a teaspoon - in this case, the drying process will go faster, and there will be almost no dried seeds in the finished product.
3. Cover a baking sheet with parchment. Place the tomato slices tightly, literally right next to each other, on the parchment. Salt the pulp on top, pepper with freshly ground pepper, lightly sprinkle with olive or sunflower oil. For lovers of aromatic herbs, add your favorite seasonings (“Italian herbs”, “Herbs de Provence”, basil or oregano).
4. Place the baking sheet in the oven.
The optimal mode for drying is 100 degrees with convection running.
The convection mode allows the tomatoes to heat up more evenly and speeds up the cooking process. Cook for 5-6 hours. The photo shows the intermediate version after 3 hours and the final version after 5 hours.
5. While the sun-dried tomatoes are cooling, prepare the garlic for pouring over them. To do this, crush a couple of cloves of garlic with a knife and chop finely.
Then place the tomatoes in a storage container, sprinkling the layers with chopped garlic. Maybe a sprig of rosemary. Fill the contents of the jar with vegetable oil.
Place the jar of sun-dried tomatoes in the refrigerator and let the dish brew for two weeks. In addition to cream, pepper-shaped and “banana-shaped” varieties, “Casanova”, “Lady’s Finger”, “Rocket”, “Pink Icicle”, “De Barao”, and most other varieties with a high content of dry substances and suitable for canning are well suited for drying.
