Title: Gourmet Dried Tomatoes
Categories: Vegetable Dehydrator Info
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Gourmet shops, specialty food outlets and many supermarkets are featuring a new product -- SUN DRIED TOMATOES. Quite expensive, they range from $10 to $20 per pound. You'll find them in a variety of forms: sliced, minced, powdered and halved or chopped. They may be packaged dry, or in a seasoned or unseasoned oil.

The Italians first introduced this delicacy to the American market and are still one of the primary sources of dried tomatoes found on U.S. supermarket shelves. Made from PASTE tomatoes, the majority are lightly salted and dried in the sun.

The prime variety used in drying are the ROMA or plum-shaped tomatoes. They are most frequently used in making tomato paste because of their robust sweet flavor. Most varieties of round tomatoes only have about 6% solids and 94% water. The ROMA varieties may contain as much as 15% solids with 85% water. A higher solids content means that you have more tomato left after the water is removed!

Some common varieties of plum-shaped tomatoes good for drying are: RED PEAR, ROMA VF, LAROMA DEL ORO, SAN MARZANO, HUNGARIAN ITALIAN, VIVA ITALIA and SUPER ITALIAN PASTE. The SUPER ITALIAN PASTE is the meatiest of all, sweet, flavorful and frequently up to 6-inches long.

Not all tomatoes can be dried successfully. Tomatoes low in acid may develop black spots during the drying process. The black spots do not represent spoilage, but result in a slight change in flavor and are certainly not as appetizing as the fully, red, robust dried tomato.

Be sure that plum tomatoes are fully ripe before drying. Tomatoes picked ripe are richly colored; those picked before ripening are lighter in color. Tomatoes picked early and commercially ripened may have a rich red color, but are not as flavorful as a vine-ripened tomato.

Wash carefully and halve them lengthwise. Set the halves on the drying racks with the cut sides up, close together, but not overlapping. If desired, sprinkle lightly with salt. Paste tomatoes will take abot 10 to 15 hours to dry in a dehydrator at 140øF (60øC). If you're drying round tomatoes, slice 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. When dry, they will be difficult to remove from the drying racks.

The amount that you can dry at once depends on the surface area of your dehydrator or convection oven. If you live in a very hot, arid climate, you can successfully sun dry them by lightly salting and protecting from insects.

Proper storage of dried tomatoes is critical if you want them to maintain a good quality. If left out at room temperature, or in a container that is not airtight, they will deteriorate rapidly and absorb moisture from the air.

Ideally, they should be vacuum packaged and stored in the freezer. If this isn't practical for you, package in freezer bags, and then inside of airtight glass jars. Store in a refrigerator or freezer until needed.

Do not chop or flake them until ready to use. When making tomato flakes or chunks, put the dried tomatoes in a food processor or blender and chop to the desired size. Chopping a few at a time results in a nicer quality. Too many at once will gum up the blades of the blender or food processor.

If you want to marinate them in a seasoned oil for use in Italian or other dishes, be sure to store them in the refrigerator. ** How To Dry Foods by Deanna DeLong HPBooks, California 1992 ISBN = 1-55788-050-6

Scanned and formatted for you by The WEE Scot -- paul macGregor

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