Tomato Conserva is a sauce rendered to the very essence of a sun ripened tomato. It is next level tomato paste and super easy to make. (Just choose a cool day because the oven will be on (low) for a few hours).
Tomato Conserva is so special that I freeze it in jars so it is not mistaken for ordinary tomato sauce. We use a lot of tomatoes to make a small jar of paste. It is a precious sauce. I use it on pizza, pasta, or simply spread on a perfect bruschetta with a perfect cheese.
The very essence of summer.
Usually, Tomato Conserva is made solely with tomatoes, but I like to add onions and garlic. (We had a big zucchini too, so I threw that in as well to roast for a dinner salad). So maybe we should call is tomato onion conserva!
TIP ONE: Sprinkle with high quality olive oil.
Roughly cut the tomatoes, onions, and smash the garlic. Throw them into a large roasting dish. Toss the vegetables in a tablespoon of good olive oil. Choose an oil with a bright, fresh scent reminiscent of a summer morning orchard (you know the one). Grill (broil) under high heat until you see significant charring. I do not add salt, as I let the tomatoes do the talking. You can add the salt and pepper in your final dish.
TIP TWO: Scorch the tomatoes first until you see the skins blackening and crinkling.
Now the fun bit, push the vegetables through a colander or press to extract all the skins and seeds.
Pour the fluid back into the roasting dish and cook in the oven on low until very thick. This will look watery to begin with, but we will reduce this down to a small amount of intense concentrated paste. This can take up to three hours, so check the progress often and stir occasionally.
TIP THREE: When you can drag a spoon through the paste and see glimpses of the pan, turn the oven off and cook off as the oven cools.
Decant into clean jars from your sustainable-living jar collection and freeze (leave an inch at the top for freezing expansion).
With a few jars of tomato conserva in the freezer you will never be short of a meal.
Last night, we had surprise overnight visitors (so the hay baling and pickling ground to a halt), but there you are – kids love farming too! I gave them spaghetti with a spoonful of tomato conserva and lots of grated Parmesan. And they loved it.
But they love Vandal more.
Good morning!. It is muggy today so the last of the baling is going to be miserable. It is wretched to work with these bales because of all the thistle prickles – they hurt and get everywhere! (If you know what I mean) But I am determined and a good shower solves all those problems!
Have a good one!
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
18 responses to “Tips for a Deluxe Tomato Paste”
That looks delicious – I do similar but different, with grated tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, anchovy paste and red wine vinegar.
…and faithful Boo looks on 😉
Oh my goodness- that sounds divine. I have never grated tomato. I will give it a try! (Not sure if I can buy anchovy paste here but I will look).
Grating tomatoes is a brilliant Mediterranean thing. You get all the best of the tomato, without the skin in a couple of seconds, no blanching necessary. Cut in half and grate the wet side. If you can’t find anchovy paste (which you might get in a Chicago Italian deli), use a couple of anchovies, canned in olive oil, these are very cheap in Europe. Anchvy paste is just crushed cured anchovies and olive oil (like mashing up the canned stuff). No preservatives! I don’t cook my concoction for very long before cooling and freezing. It usually gets a second cook as part of a sauce, or before using on top of pizza.
I do the same Mad..a thing I learned from my Italian aunties and my Mama Mia. Grating makes quick work of those tomatoes and skins them at the same time. Anchovies make the sauce. 🙂
Those children are darling!
Indeed!
I especially like the sky photo at the end.
Wispy! The skies here are amazing every day. Absolutely no sign of rain in the forecast though. So all blue and little cloud.
Lovely pictures and you made tomatoes more tasty than they are already.. I’d like to try. Thank you Cecil👏🏻
You are so welcome Suha – and I am so honored that you visited my blog pages! Thank you! I would be interested to know what variety of tomatoes you have there?
I do something similar at the roasting end with cherry tomatoes, sprinkled with garlic, olive oil and oregano. When they are roasted and soupy, I freeze them in thin layers in a dish, then when frozen I layer the thin ‘planks’ of frozen tomato with parchment and put in a larger container in the freezer for a big summery flavour hit in pasta sauces. I don’t even bother with the skins and seeds, as they aren’t very noticeable with the little cherry toms.
Oh absolutely. The cherry toms are the best! Once they are in the planks – you can stack them like books!
Lots of delicious tomato tips here. I’ll be checking back in.
Yes! Love our community here!
As is my wont I first scrolled through the photos. This way it looked like you were cooking tomatoes with added cat.
Yes! The cat was waiting quietly in the bucket – served on the side !! Clever you are!!
I did something very similar for sauce a couple weeks ago. Because I was eating it by the spoonful out of the pan (so freaking good), tomorrow I’m going to do it again and the take the immersion blender to it for soup.
Oh yes!! That is so good. You can throw all kinds of other vegetables from the garden when you are going to make soup with the blender. I never bother taking off skins when I am blending it
Either. I just figure it is more fibre and when scorched the skins are so sweet!
Have to wait for tomatoes to grow and/or the prices at the market to come down before trying this. But I will in a couple of months. Thanks, Celi