The Zimbabwean Gardener Issue 15 Summer 2015/2016 Low res | Page 22

Sun-dried tomatoes

By Winke Schmolke

With the abundance of tomatoes lining our roads, or the constant harvesting of cherry tomatoes
from your vegetable garden, drying tomatoes under the hot summer sun to preserve them for
later use in tasty recipes is a great idea.
You can dry any tomato. However, it is best to use mediumsized tomatoes as they have a thick flesh, not too much
space in the middle, and a few seeds. Cherry tomatoes
should be halved and will take longer to dry. The larger
tomatoes have a lot of space in the middle and are not very
fleshy. Tomatoes generally take a day or two to dry; it is best
to get them ready in the morning. Follow these instructions
on how to dry tomatoes:
1. Top and tail the tomatoes and slice. If you are using
cherry tomatoes, halve them.
2. Place a newspaper flat on a table and sprinkle salt on
newspaper. Place the sliced tomato on the newspaper
and sprinkle more salt on top of the tomatoes.
3. Cover the tomatoes with another piece of newspaper
and pat lightly; this helps to remove excess moisture
from the tomatoes so they will dry faster.
4. Remove slices from the newspaper and place on
a rack in the full sun. Make sure the rack has good
airflow underneath it. Bell peppers are great to store
with tomatoes. Just slice them up and place on the
rack with the tomatoes. Remove when dry. If there
are any flies around, cover the tomatoes and peppers
with a mozzie net.
5. If your tomatoes don’t dry on the first day, bring them
inside and place them in an area with good airflow. Put
them out in the sun the following morning.

Preserving options

Dried tomatoes can be preserved in olive oil or dry.
However, the time you dry them will differ depending on
how you want to preserve them.

Dried and crunchy

If you want to store the tomatoes dry, you must dry them
until they are crunchy and hard. You can then store these in
an airtight container; they also freeze well.
The flavour of sun-dried tomatoes is quite intense,
concentrated, and slightly salty, so a little goes a long way.
They are great to use when cooking stews and pasta dishes.
Try replacing canned tomatoes with sun-dried tomatoes.
It is important to note that sun-dried tomatoes are not so
nice to cook or eat when they are crunchy and hard. Before
cooking with them, rehydrate the tomatoes by covering them
in hot water for half an hour or more; keep this water for
using in stocks, etc.

Dried fruit and vegetables available

Dried fruit and vegetables are available every Wednesday
and Saturday morning at the Maasdorp Farmer’s Market on
Maasdorp Road in Belgravia, Harare.

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