Tomato Puree Recipe: A Tomato Sauce Essential.

By Fina Scroppo

In Issue 96 of Outpost Magazine we featured a recipe for homemade Italian tomato sauce by Fina Scroppo. As a complement, Fina has graciously provided us with her process for preparing tomato puree, from her book The Healthy Italian: Cooking For the Love of Food and Family. With this tomato puree process you be well on your way to working out a spectacular tomato sauce recipe.

The Process

• Select the ripest Roma or San Marzano variety tomatoes.
• Wash tomatoes, slice them in half and parboil them in boiling water.
• Strain well and put tomatoes through a tomato press/milling machine (it separates the pulp from the seeds and skins). Put the seeds and skin through the machine again to fully remove all the pulp.
• Boil the tomato puree in a large pot for about 15 to 20 minutes until it thickens.
• Quickly fill a sterilized Mason jar with hot tomato puree and add a fresh basil leaf. Seal well (you may want to wear oven gloves to protect you from the heat) and turn the Mason jar upside down. Let jars cool, covered in blankets, for 24 to 48 hours.

Fina Scroppois an award-winning writer and editor. She has one of the most diversified backgrounds in the publishing business with more than 20 years of experience as an editor, writer, researcher and consultant for magazines, books and special-interest publications. There are few topics that she hasn’t covered, but the ones she loves the most are food and nutrition. Since she was tall enough to stand over the stove, she’s been making homemade tomato sauce and meatballs. At the age of eight, she learned to spin her own homemade pasta sheets for her mom’s divine lasagna. Today, as a busy mom, she leans on what she knows best—Italian cooking—to deliver healthy meals to her family.