In an effort to save money, be more environmentally conscious and spend more quality time together, Sam and I have been baking our own breads, growing our own herbs (and working towards our first vegie garden!), and now we have taken on the very rewarding task of making tomato sauce.
Now, I should make it known that we love tomato sauce. No burger or bowl of hot chips is complete without a a rich, red dollop of sauce - however, there's tomato sauce and then there's tomato sauce.
This recipe is for brag-to-yo-mama-at-your-skills tomato sauce!
Not only was making the sauce a great experience, we have also been collecting jars and bottles in preparation for Christmas gifts later in the year, so this was the perfect time to test run this recipe and reuse our glass bottles. Although the whole process took about 4 hours, we were rewarded for our efforts with 1.5 litres of smooth, sweet and spicy sauce, with a kick of lime.
We are in love with our very first batch, and can't wait to experiment with different flavours in the future!
Our Favourite Tomato Sauce Recipe
2.5 kg ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 large brown onions, coarsely chopped
2 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp whole cloves
2 bay leaves
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
2 tbs salt
500g white sugar
435 ml apple cider vinegar
juice and zest of 1 lime
1. Place tomato and onion in a large saucepan over a medium-low heat. Cover and bring to the boil, stirring often. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour or until the tomato breaks down and is tender. Set aside for 10 minutes to cool.
2. Meanwhile, wrap the peppercorns, cloves and bay leaves in a 10cm piece of muslin and tie with unwaxed kitchen string to enclose.
3. Use a stick blender to blens tomato mixture until a coarse puree forms. Strain through a fine sieve into a large bowl, in batches, pressing to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard solids.
4. Return tomato puree to a large clean saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in the vinegar, salt, sugar, lime juice and zest, spices and spice pouch for 6 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Bring to a simmer, stirring often. Reduce heat to low. Simmer stirring often, for 2 hours or until sauce reduces and thickens.
5. Ladle the hot sauce into bottles. Seal. Store in a cool, dark place out of direct sunlight until ready to use. Once opened store, in the fridge.
6. Enjoy your homemade, preservative and artificial colours and flavours free, tomato sauce greatness on a delicious burger, with hot chips or anything else that takes your fancy!
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Side note: Recipe is by Helene Sutherland - January 2013 Woolworths Australian Good Taste (page 122-3).
We did however tweak her recipe to include lime juice and zest, bay leaves, ginger, paprika and mixed spice, and omitted the pickling spice (as we didn't have any on hand).
