We are absolutely overflowing with amazingly sweet, delicious cherry tomatoes right now. My kids gobble them up, as do I and my wife, but they’re still outpacing us. We have three plants, and we can hardly keep up. My question is this: has anyone ever cooked with these things? I’m worried that, due to the excessive “sweetness” of these little guys that a sauce or some other traditional tomato recipe won’t come out right. I’m also curious about the skin-to-flesh ratio vs. that of a standard tomato. I’m not talking about fresh consumption (tossing them in hot pasta, salads, etc. we do a lot), but more like making sauce to freeze / can, etc. I’d love any thoughts or advice you all have so I can do something with these things.
Pan-roast them slowly with olive oil and a dash of either sea salt or fish sauce.
Then freeze, for later use.
Do not freeze them. Can them in mason jars.
How do you use them later, Victor? What temp to, “slowly” roast them? Thanks!
I have slow roasted them at about 250, with olive oil and some sea salt. Friends just did something similar but added a bit of red wine vinegar and fresh thyme. Really delicious. Canning is a good idea. I don’t see why freezing would not work if you use a vacuum sealer – but curious to hear if others have had bad experiences with that.
Listening carefully … one of the stands at our farmers market has the most wonderful sungolds and I would love to have the for later! I never put tomatoes in the fridge but what would be a problem with freezing roasted? No vacuum sealer here … hmmm
A light thread drift but the vacuum sealer was one of the best purchases we made in the last year. Not that expensive (around 100 if I recall), and it does not take up much room (we are in a relatively small apartment). We also bought a deep freezer – a bit more expensive but also well worth it. Now we buy meat from local farmers in bulk, and freeze things like tomato sauce, etc.
Just use low heat and about thirty minutes, depending on the size and moisture of the tomatoes. The tomato sugars will caramelize, especially if you pierce the tomatoes at the start, so that their juices can reduce.
They then can be frozen, for later use in sauces and as garnishes.
Not enough flesh to make it worth while to make sauce. You’d have to peel and seed them. Then what do you have left? I just made pasta sauce over the weekend with heirloom tomatoes and it took about 10lbs of tomatoes to make 4 quarts of sauce.
cook them as little as possible as you’ll only increase the sweetness.
I’d blanch then run them through a food mill to remove skins and seeds. next add acid, salt and hot pepper to balance the sweetness. you can reduce briefly in batches in your widest pan or thicken with xanthan gum or both.
Paul is dead on.
Don’t be afraid to add lemon juice to both balance and stabilize. It is part of the canning process anyway.
Then freeze or can.
Victor’s idea is also just fine with a vacuum sealer, which honestly I hadn’t thought to do. I’ve been stacking marinara, straight sauce, and salsa.
I add a touch of Butter…lately
Pomodoro!
[quote=“Kenny H”]Paul is dead on.
Don’t be afraid to add lemon juice to both balance and stabilize. quote]
Cheers Kenny. I literally add acid sometimes too. A few teaspoons of powdered citric acid. it’s like $3/lb on amazon.
Brian, that was exactly what I was assuming…thanks for clarifying. Also, great call on the added acid. I think I’ll slow roast a few and try the food mill + acid for some canning as a base for sauce next year. Our standard tomatoes, while they had prolific plants, developed some sort of disease and rotted from the bottoms up as the fruit turned from green to red. Very frustrating. At least we have these little beauties!
Pan roast on the stove top, not in the oven, to avoid heating up the entire kitchen.
Good Lord Victor. Really?
Yes. Why heat up an entire oven for a batch of tomatoes, when just a heavy metal pan will suffice. The point is a slow roast over low heat, not a high-powered blast furnace.
Roast them.
That is how mine result, when done on stove top.