cerealjoe | Sauce tomate (ou tapenade tomate...) maison (Reply)

Like almost everything else in life tomatoes come in waves. They don't just gradually become ripe, nope. Some get ripe, others stay green. But those that do get ripe all get ripe at almost the same time which means that one is left with a huge leftover of tomatoes because one can only eat so much tomato mozza/feta salad in one sitting.

That means eventually it's time to make homemade tomato sauce... or something that ended up being somewhere between tomato sauce and tapenade. This time I didn't add vodka, I should have tried though, my parents' bar has about twenty different kids of vodkas. (for the record, yes, last time I did add vodka, probably not enough because I didn't notice that much change in terms of taste)

Culinary exploration ahoy!

Step 1. Climb through the different sections of the garden and get tomatoes.
Step 2.
Step 3. Get loads of money.

Oh wait...

Actually this time I noticed that some of our tomato plants went over the fence to the neighbours' section, boo!

Time to peel the tomatoes. Everyone knows how to do that easily, right? Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and let them sit in it for a couple of seconds and then the skin comes right off. It's actually even easier if you make a tiny incision in the tomato before pouring the boiling water.

(not pictured because the photos came out really crappy)
Cut up some onions, some mushrooms, some herbs. Do the usual cooking up with some oil.

Put in the tomatoes, squish them a bit just so that there is enough liquid to cover most of them. Eventually they'll become soft and you can easily reduce them to a pulp, or almost, with one of those things used to make mashed potatoes. Tomatoes contain a lot of water and that means that you'll have to leave it on a stove for quite some time but that's where the flavour comes, from the slow reduction! That's why the tomato sauce in most restaurants tastes like crap even though they claim that they make their own! They make it in ten minutes and basta! What kind of tomato sauce can you make in ten minutes if you start with real tomatoes?