Over the past year, our passata recipe has evolved considerably. We still make the roasted tomato version, but Pete now combines that with a fresh passata that he makes by simply blanching, processing and draining Roma tomatoes. The end result of this new method is a bright red, thick puree which is both sweet and clean tasting.
1. Start with good quality Roma tomatoes – the ones we bought from Jimmy at the markets were thick fleshed, and quite dry inside.
2. Cut these in half and squeeze the excess juice and seeds out as best you can. The liquid inside the tomatoes is often slightly sour – removing and discarding it now leaves just the sweet pulp in the finished sauce.
3. Blanch the tomatoes briefly in boiling water – the aim is simply to heat them up and soften them so they’ll pass through the food mill. You don’t want to actually cook them too much. Drain well.
4. Pass the cooled tomatoes through a food mill or tomato juicer. We put the extruded pulp back through a couple more times to extract every last bit of flavour from it – usually the final pass produces a thick paste which enriches the sauce.
5. Pour boiling water through a clean cloth, then use it to line a colander over a large bowl. Pour the passata into the cloth and allow it to drain until thick. Whatever you do, don’t throw out the juice that collects in the bowl below! That’s delicious, pure tomato water – more on that in a future post.
Once your passata has drained thoroughly, it can be frozen in small containers for future use. We mix ours with roasted tomato passata, to create a tomato concentrate which we find ideal for pastas and pizzas.
Click here for a printable version of this recipe
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