Tomato purée or tomato blend is a thick, red paste or concentrate made from blended tomato pulp that has been cooked. This puree is can be used for jollof rice, tomato sauce, tomato stew, egg sauce or for whatever recipe that calls for tomato puree. I initially stated in my previous post on this forum that vegetables generally contain a lot of water and one of such are tomatoes, if they are blended fresh, you will have to add water to the blender to assist the spinning process otherwise your blender will hook even though some blenders are like super engines and may not require you adding water.
Now, the water you have added to blend this plus the water in the tomatoes will become even too much and you will need to burn a lot gas and time to cook until the water dries up before the frying begins.
When you boil your tomatoes and bell peppers first, it helps to reduce the large quantity of water from the tomatoes and in this case, you don't need to boil it again for hours before making your stew. The time it takes for the tomatoes to shrink and loss moisture is just 5- 10 minutes depending on your source of heat which is the quicker to make your stew. Apart from boiling your tomatoes and peppers, you can as well roast them in the oven to get rid of excess water. This would be a post for another day. Below are steps I took to achieve the above reddish tomato puree (tomato mix). See the video above also. Happy cooking.
Ingredients for tomato puree
• 1kg of red tomatoes • 5 red bell peppers (tatashe) • 2 medium onions • 3 scotch bonnets (ata rodo) • 1 medium ginger • 3 cloves of garlic • Blender • And a pot
How to Make Tomato Puree or Tomato Blend
1. To make tomato purée or tomato blend rinse tomato with the peppers severally in clean water. 2. Combine tomato peppers, ginger, garlic and onions into a medium pot, without adding water place a lid over it and place on heat. 3. Cook these for 5 minutes, the tomatoes will begin to lose a lot of water and turn out very soft. 4. Cook for another 3 to 5 minutes once they are completely soft, drain out the liquid with a colander and leave to cool. 5. Transfer the tomato, onion, ginger, garlic into a blender and blend without water being added until very smooth and nice. 6. Pour the tomato puree into a zip-lock bag and store in the fridge until needed or use it immediately for your favorite stew recipe such as jollof rice.
