How to keep sun dried tomatoes
Pubblished bykageja
Tomatoes , fruits and vegetables, to be kept better, can be safely dried. But drying all of it , to keep these products , isn’t enough. The most common dried-product is tomato, as it is very versatile. If it is dried, it can be eaten all year and, once tomatoes were been dehydrated, it has to keep them correctly, to avoid contaminations and so dangerous infections when they are ingested. There are many easy and above all practical solutions, and above all they are all cheap. Here are the most common.
Given that tomatoes can be dried in the sun or ina proper dryer, the nit has to put them back ina suitable way. The most common solution is to sterilize some hermetically sealed jars and to keep them ina dark and cool place. Very serious mistake: if tomatoes were dried in the sun , never do this operation because only the dryer can remove moisture completely. The risk of developing some moistures in the jar is too high.
If a dryer isn’t available, how can tomatoes and all dried fruits and vagetables be kept ? There are two methods: the first is to keep them in a freezer. It’s important that there is any trace of air in the container, so, if hermetically sealed sealed containers are used, it’s better to fill them thoroughly, without to leave space. Certainly , hermetically sealed containers are ideal if tomatoes are used in large quantity, while if they are used slowly and in small quantities , it’s better to opt for vacuum bags . Moreover , it has to bear this in mind: frozen tomatoes last about 18 months.
The second method is to keep them in oil, even if it’s better for green tomatoes. . It goes on in this way: to wash and to cut tomatoes in half, to salt the surface, to put them in a colander or in a strainer and to put them in the fridge for six hours. Passed the time, to wash them delicately to desalinate, to put them in a bowl with half-litre of vinegar for four hours and, then, to drain and to dry them. Finally, to put them in earlier sterilized jars and to cover them with oil that is preferred (sun-flower-seed, extra virgen olive, etc..). To seal up these jars, it’s recommended to boil them in water, well closed and wrapped in a dish-cloth, to avoid breaking, then to turn upside down them and to leave them to cool naturally. In this way the cap will move back and tomatoes will be sealed and protected from any external contamination until the making will be opened.
