Sun-dried tomato recipes: how long it takes to cook in the oven and microwave, with what to serve

The first mention of sun-dried tomatoes dates back to the beginning of the 18th century. But really widespread popularity of dried tomatoes found only in the second half of the XIX century. In 1856, Francesco Cirio, a resident of Turin, began canning tomatoes using the Upper method, opening his own factory for these purposes.

Italians and Greeks cannot imagine their culinary life without this product. They add dried tomatoes to the dough, make them a filling for pies, put on sandwiches, add pizza and turn into a paste sauce. What can I say, if only one sun-dried tomato, put on a skewer and eaten with a slice of fresh bread, is capable of delivering real gastronomic pleasure.

About the benefits and harms of dried tomatoes

Sun-dried tomatoes belong to the category of products, the benefits of which are unlimited, and the harm is minimal. To cause damage to human health, this delicacy is only able to overeat. Dried tomatoes contain a lot of oxalic acid, which when consumed in large quantities can be harmful to the liver. Perhaps this is the only minus of the product. Otherwise, sun-dried tomatoes are a real benefit. The energy value of the product is 258 kcal per 100 g. The balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates (BJU) is presented in the table.

Table - Balance of BJU of dried tomatoes

Sun-dried tomatoes are a medium-calorie product. Therefore, a small amount of delicacy can be consumed even by guardians of the figure and those who, for health reasons, are on a strict diet. Listed below are four key benefits.

1. Coarse Fiber. The value of this substance lies in the fact that it contributes to the uninterrupted and high-quality work of the organs of the gastrointestinal tract.
2. Antidepressants. By putting into practice a step-by-step recipe for sun-dried tomatoes, you will end up with an antidepressant dish. Dried tomatoes improve the functioning of the nervous system and save the body from the damaging effects of stress.
3. Serotonin. Another plus of the dish is the increased content of serotonin. The very hormone of happiness, which is a lot in chocolate. By sending a couple of tomatoes into your mouth, you will immediately feel how the mood and well-being in general are improving.
4. Potassium. Without this trace element, the human heart is not capable of uninterrupted operation. In addition, due to a lack of potassium, a person may experience increased swelling.

3 criteria for wise choice

The answer to the question of how to make sun-dried tomatoes begins with a competent selection of fruits for subsequent heat treatment. Residents of sunny Italy prefer the variety San Marzano. You can use the following three rules.

1. Weight. It is believed that the weight of the tomato should not exceed 130 g and should not be less than 100 g.
2. Maturity. The best choice is slightly ripened fruits. If you send a mature tomato to the oven or electric dryer, then during the process of drying it will become too dark and will look like a coal. However, the unaesthetic appearance will have no effect on taste. The tomato will remain as fragrant and spicy as its nicer-looking counterparts.
3. Grade. If you take to dry tomatoes, pay attention to the variety. To the best of juicy “cream” is ideal for drying. While cherry tomatoes are completely unsuitable for this. The latter contains a huge amount of sugar, which not every fruit can boast of.

5 rules for perfect drying

Ripe tomato is 90% water. It is moisture that prevents ruddy fruits from being stored for a long time. Therefore, your task is to make sure that there is a minimum of water in tomatoes, not more than 15%. If the moisture content exceeds this indicator, then the cooked treat will not be able to be stored for a long time. The following five recommendations will help to do everything correctly.

1. Cleaning. Only the “walls” of tomatoes are usually dried. Therefore, the insides of the fetus - seeds and septa - must first be eliminated.
2. Cutting. Fruits should be cut into three to four parts, depending on weight.
3. Ambassador. The slices spread the “belly” top and sprinkle with salt on top - so that during the heat treatment the moisture evaporates as soon as possible. It is desirable that the salt was not ordinary food, but sea coarse grinding.
4. Temperature. The process of drying takes place at a temperature of from 40 to 100 ° C - depending on the selected cooking method.
5. Duration. The duration of the process is affected by air humidity, drying temperature, size and initial weight of tomatoes, as well as other factors. Therefore, for example, drying in the oven will take a little more than six hours. And drying in natural conditions will last much longer.

How to do

Today, when the housewives have an impressive kitchen arsenal, it is foolish to dry tomatoes in a natural way - in the sun. The process can be optimized and accelerated by doing the same in an oven, microwave or electric dryer. Reviews of home cooks indicate that the oven is the most popular way. In a microwave oven, and even more so in a specially designed electric dryer, doing this is no less convenient and simple. The nuances of cooking are described in the table.

Table - Methods for making sun-dried tomatoes at home

Sun-dried tomatoes at home: 4 recipes

It is difficult to name the most delicious and most successful recipe for sun-dried tomatoes in the oven. Therefore, you can choose from classic Italian and several drying methods from famous culinary gurus.

Italian style with garlic

Description. Tomatoes are cooked differently in different regions of Italy. You can add any favorite spices and herbs, dried or fresh, to your sun-dried Italian-style tomatoes, giving the dish its unique taste and aroma.

You will need:

• Tomatoes of the grade "Cream" - 1.5 kg;
• coarse sea salt;
• black pepper;
• olive oil;
• garlic - three large cloves.

Guide to action

1. Wash the fruits, dry with paper towels and cut into four parts.
2. We cover the baking sheet with parchment, grease it with oil and spread the cut vegetables on the surface.
3. Sprinkle slices with coarse salt and a little pepper.
4. For each slice, drip literally a drop of olive oil.
5. We send the baking sheet to the oven preheated to 100 ° C, leaving the door slightly ajar. This will allow moisture to evaporate from the pulp as quickly as possible.
6. We leave the finished dried tomatoes inside until completely cooled.
7. Pour a little oil at the bottom of the can, carefully lay out the dried slices, gradually pouring olive oil on each layer and adding your favorite spices.

With rosemary from Julia Vysotskaya

Description. Rosemary makes dried tomatoes very fragrant and tender. And in the future, when you get a jar of tomatoes and decide to make sandwiches, pizza or sauce with their participation, you will feel how spicy and expressive this ingredient sounds in the dish.

You will need:

• tomatoes - 2 kg;
• salt;
• rosemary - five to six branches;
• thyme - to taste.

Guide to action

1. We wash the tomatoes, cut in half and with the help of a dessert spoon, without damaging the walls, remove the core.
2. Salt each half and pour a little olive oil inside.
3. We spread it on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and send it to the oven preheated to 100 ° C.
4. Carefully lay the finished cooled tomatoes in a glass container for storage, layering with sprigs of rosemary and chopped thyme.
5. Having completed the process, fill the fruits with herbs with oil to the top and tightly close the lid.

With basil and hot pepper from Vincenzo Barba

Description. The chef and the owner of two Michelin stars suggests cooking savory sun-dried tomatoes with basil, chili and walnuts. If you are not a fan of spicy, reduce the amount of chili in the recipe. And if, on the contrary, you do not mind tasting a burning delicacy, increase its content.

You will need:

• tomatoes - 1 kg;
• walnuts - 100 g;
• vinegar - two tablespoons;
• chili pepper - two pods;
• garlic - two cloves;
• parsley - a bunch;
• butter - a dessert spoon;
• oregano and basil - to taste;
• coarse sea salt - a teaspoon;
• water - five teaspoons.

Guide to action

1. Vyalim tomatoes in a traditional way.
2. We send the peeled walnuts, chili, garlic, basil and oregano to the blender. Grind. Squeeze the juice, pouring it into a separate container.
3. Add vinegar and water to the squeezed juice, throw a piece of butter, boil and pour into a jar for preparation.
4. Spread dried tomatoes in the same container, layering them with a mixture of nuts, hot pepper and herbs.
5. Top up with olive oil so that it covers the fruits.

With cheese and bell peppers from Hector Jimenez Bravo

Description. The recipe for sun-dried tomatoes and cheese is useful if there are very few tomatoes on the baking sheet. This delicacy, layered with cheese and olives, can be flavored with olive or sunflower oil. But such storage is not suitable for long-term storage.

You will need:

• tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
• hard cheese - 200 g;
• pitted black olives - 100 g;
• bell pepper - two pieces;
• sunflower or olive oil;
• salt;
• oregano.

Guide to action

1. Vyalim tomatoes in the oven, as usual.
2. We spread the cooled fruits in a jar in layers.
3. Between each layer of tomatoes we put a layer of cheese sprinkled with herbs, a layer of sliced ​​bell pepper and a layer of olives cut into rings.
4. Top the finished dish with oil.

Features of storing flavored snacks

The question of how to store sun-dried tomatoes is one of the urgent. Indeed, despite the short lifespan of the delicacy, I want to keep it longer. To surprise guests suddenly arriving, and treat yourself to family holidays. The following three tips will help you keep your favorite treat for six months.

1. In the pantry. The home pantry is great for storing hermetically sealed jars of dried tomatoes. In many manuals they write like this: "... put in a dark cool place." But at room temperature, the shelf life of an open tomato delicacy is reduced by half and is no more than three months.
2. In a refrigerator. It is best to place a jar of dried tomatoes in the lower compartment of the refrigerator - where you usually put greens and fresh vegetables for storage. Optimum temperature ranges from 0 to 10 ° C.
3. In the cellar. There is no refrigerator, but there is a cellar? Wonderful. These two storage methods are absolutely equivalent in their effectiveness.

What to eat and where to add

Another question is what sun dried tomatoes eat. Ask him to the Italian, he will bulge your eyes and be genuinely surprised. And all because the inhabitants of sunny Italy add this delicacy everywhere - from banal sandwiches and canapes to traditional pizza and pasta. You can do exactly the same.

Cooking

If you bought fruits not in oil, but simply dried in a vacuum package, do not forget to pre-prepare the vegetables for use, using one of three methods.

1. Soak in water. If the delicacy tastes before tomorrow, put the tomatoes in a deep plate and cover with room temperature water. Having stood the night in water, in the morning the product will be completely ready for use.
2. Boil in water with vinegar. The fastest way to saturate the tomatoes with moisture is to boil them in water with the addition of a small amount of acetic acid. Just a couple of minutes - and the sun-dried delicacy can be used.
3. Boil in water without vinegar. No vinegar or you should not use it? In this case, just boil the tomatoes in water a little. It will take not two minutes, but five to seven, but the result will be the same.

Send to salad

Features Even simple dishes with the addition of sun-dried tomatoes turn into spicy and fragrant masterpieces of culinary art. Tomatoes go well with other vegetables, be it potato gnocchi or ratatouille, fritata or moussaka. Sun-dried tomatoes emphasize the taste of chickpeas and decorate boring hummus in color. You can make a salad with sun-dried tomatoes and tuna and make sure again: dried tomatoes are a thing.

You will need:

• dried tomatoes - 100 g;
• baked bell pepper - one piece;
• pitted olives - 50 g;
• anchovies - 50 g;
• canned tuna - one can;
• arugula - half a bunch;
• olive oil.

Guide to action

1. We tear the arugula in a salad bowl and add the chopped tuna to it with a fork.
2. We send anchovies and finely chopped peppers and sun-dried tomatoes there.
3. Mix, season with oil and enjoy.

As you can see, sun-dried tomato recipes and methods of their use in home cooking are quite diverse. By the way, you can harvest tomatoes without oil at all. This will extend the shelf life of the product by half - up to 12 months, and will allow you to enjoy the delicacy ripened under the sun until the next tomato harvest.Just put the dried fruit in a plastic or glass container and tightly close the lid so that no one of the insects dares to share the meal with you.

Reviews: “The process is time-consuming, but the result is worth it”

I here wound up, naturally, in a shade)) of cherry tomatoes. But they, it turns out, are completely unsuitable for this, because they are sweeter than the sweetest dried fruit. But still flooded with oil, shifted seasonings, maybe they will stand and be less sweet?)) But even very sweet, they are unusually tasty. I advise everyone, in the sense of sluggish)))

Almaty, https://gotovim-doma.ru/recipe/985-vyalenye-pomidory

I dried it at 55 degrees, it seems to me that everything turned out as it should. But it took me a few days to miserable 4 pounds of fresh tomatoes. I can’t even imagine how long it would have taken if I had sushi them in the sun.

natakxa, http://kulinarny-larec.livejournal.com/40658.html

Of course, the process is laborious, but the result is worth it. I like such tomatoes in homemade pizza, just a pleasure !!!! But the store ones will certainly not be an order of magnitude higher in cost, so it’s worth trying to cook such wonderful tomatoes yourself.

Slavs, http://bufeta.net/vyalenye-pomidory-v-domashnix-usloviyax.html

Mom was in Italy and brought dried tomatoes from there. They were in a sealed plastic bag. were cut into halves and long ones longer than our tomato cream. It tasted SUCH salty, just scary. But they were told so that they need to be soaked well, and then transferred to a jar of herbs, spices and pour hot oil. When we all did this ... Mmmm, what was yummy.

Aquarius, http://www.povarenok.ru/recipes/show/71762/

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