How delicious it is to dry tomatoes in the oven without convection. Sharing the recipe

This year I tried drying tomatoes in a non-convection oven. I thought that nothing would work out - all the recipes needed special dryers, or modes, or God knows what else. And my oven is old, without bells and whistles, Jamie Oliver has never seen anything like it in his nightmares.

The first time I really didn't succeed. I thought, figured, made changes - and tried again. Another mistake. I spoiled five kilograms of tomatoes - and yet I found THE SAME RECIPE.

It really works.

I loaded a portion of chopped tomatoes into the old oven, and came out with something delicious that you wouldn’t even try in an Italian restaurant.

Interesting? Sit closer, now I’ll tell you everything.

First you need to choose tomatoes

Do not take juicy, soft fruits - they mummify in the oven. There is little pulp in such tomatoes, but a lot of water. When the liquid evaporates, only the skin and seeds remain.

Through trial and error, I realized that the best variety for drying is dense, meaty cream. When broken, such a fruit looks silvery-sugar and dry.

Do not use overripe cream - it contains too much moisture.

Tomatoes the size of a chicken egg are best. Those that are smaller dry out so that there is nothing to eat. And with large ones there is too much fuss.

Preparing the fruits

Wash and dry - I won’t even talk about this, you know everything yourself. And then the difficulties begin.

I cut the tomatoes in half.I carefully cut out the stalk with the tip of a knife, so as not to crush the fruit.

I tried drying tomatoes in slices - it turned out to be nonsense. The juice quickly flowed out of them, and the pieces themselves dried up, like the mummy of an Egyptian pharaoh. But there were no problems with the halves.

I came across advice on the Internet: use a spoon to take out the seeds and “extra” liquid so that the fruits wilt faster. I tried to do this - and again I got “mummies”.

Therefore my advice: Leave the seeds and juice, it tastes better with them.

Secret ingredients

To make the tomatoes truly tasty, prepare:

• garlic;
• purple basil;
• favorite spices - I took a mixture of peppers and a set of “Italian herbs”.

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Don’t skimp: peeling off dried-out tomatoes and then washing the metal sheet is a below-average pleasure. And the workpiece is removed from the parchment with one movement of the hand.

Salt each slice and sprinkle a little sugar. Sugar is rarely mentioned in online recipes, but my opinion is that it tastes better. In our area, fresh tomatoes are not particularly sweet. During the drying process, the water leaves them, but the acid remains. The finished product is salty and sour. For my taste, the preparation lacks sweetness, so I add a little sugar.

I cut the garlic into thin slices, and tear the basil into leaves. I mix the seasonings with the spices and sprinkle them over the tomatoes.

And we start drying

What is convection? In fact, an ordinary draft. In modern ovens, air movement is created by special fans. And I decided to just not close the oven.

And that was enough!

1. My door is spring-loaded, so I simply inserted a wooden spacer about 5 cm long.
2. I put the tomatoes in the chamber right away, without waiting for the oven to warm up.
3. I set the temperature “by eye”.Convection ovens are recommended to be heated to 100 ^OS. But my door is open, which means the temperature regulator is useless. Therefore, I simply stuck my hand into the oven: the air should be heated, like in a bathhouse, but not scalding.
4. In my oven, you can choose a heating mode: lower spiral, upper, or both. I turned on the bottom one, and placed the baking sheet higher - away from the heat source and closer to the draft.

My oven heats unevenly: the temperature near the walls is higher than in the middle. Therefore, identical-sized slices were dried at different speeds. It doesn’t matter - I removed those tomatoes that were already ready from the baking sheet, and put new ones in their place.

It also happened that some of the slices were burnt at the edges. No problem! I just cut off the black edges, it didn't affect the taste at all.

Advice from an experienced dryer... dryer... in short, you get the idea

Your goal is to evaporate most of the moisture from the tomatoes. If you overdo it, you'll end up with crackers. If you overdo the temperature, you will end up with regular baked tomatoes.

Watch the process carefully at least the first 2-3 times. Then you get the hang of it, and everything will work out by itself.

On average, tomatoes are dried for 6-8 hours. The time depends on the type of fruit, on the temperature, on the speed of air movement in the oven.

Ready tomatoes are thin, light, but not dry. They are soft to the touch and bend easily.

There are 3 ways to store sun-dried tomatoes

I've tried everything.

1. In fabric bags in a draft.

My grandmother once stored dried fruits this way: she put them in “sacks” and hung them under the beams. Yes, in a village house there is such a miracle of architecture as beams.

pros

It's simple. He took the bag, poured in tomatoes, and hung it up. All.

Minuses

In a city apartment, finding a place to hang bags is difficult. In addition, I made a mistake once - I didn’t dry a couple of tomatoes. They became moldy in the bags, the infection spread to neighboring slices, and I had to throw everything away.

2. Freezing

Place the tomatoes in plastic containers and put them in the freezer.

pros

It is not simple. It's super simple.

Minuses

Thawed sun-dried tomatoes are not the same anymore. They become flabby, the taste changes - it smells a little like water. Not as bad as fresh vegetables after freezing, but still unpleasant.

3. Preservation in oil

Place the tomatoes in a jar, add spices and pour hot oil.

pros

It's amazingly delicious. In addition, the oil that remains after the tomatoes can be used as a salad dressing or simply soaked in bread.

Minuses

We'll have to tinker. But believe me: it's worth it.

How to prepare oil dressing

I store tomatoes in 0.5 liter jars.

1. At the bottom of the dish I put chopped garlic, basil, black and allspice, celery leaves, parsley or dill.
2. Then lay out the sun-dried tomatoes in a layer about 1 cm high.
3. I add spices again. There are tomatoes on them again.
4. Repeat until the jar is full. Then I press the tomatoes and make a couple more layers.
5. I heat the oil. I'm not boiling! The oil just needs to warm up thoroughly.
6. I fill the jar with dressing, seal it and put it in the refrigerator.

Recipes recommend olive oil. It's a matter of taste, of course, but I tried it and I didn't like it. The bitter taste of olive oil overpowered the delicate taste of tomatoes. Well, the price - in our area this is not a cheap product.

Therefore, I fill the tomatoes with a mixture of refined sunflower and olive oil in a ratio of 70 to 30.And the Italian aroma is available, and there is savings, and there is no bitterness.

I hope you find my recipe useful!