Basic Recipes > Roast Tomato Sauce

Roasted Tomatoes

 

Adapted from a recipe by Hugh F-W, I’ve skipped some of the more fastidious bits – namely the sieving of the seeds and skin from the roasted tomatoes. Honestly – you can do it either way, but I hate waste and have never been bothered by the taste of the whole tomato. This recipe is so quick and simple, you should try it.

The sauce can be quickly made into a multitude of sauces – add lightly fried onions, wine and some stock and you have an instant rich tomato sauce for pasta, add extras like sliced chorizo, olives, extra garlic, a handful of mixed herbs, chillies, anything you like…

You can also add this sauce to many different dishes including meat bolognese, chilli-con-carne, soups. Finally, it makes a pretty good ketchup for burgers or bangers and mash.

I’ll often stick in a tray whenever I’m using the oven, and freeze or refrigerate the sauce for use in other dishes.

Preparation

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degC.
2. Cut the tomatoes into halves and fill up a baking tray (or two), placing them closely packed, cut side up, in one layer (don’t stack them).
3. Sprinkle over some pepper, salt and a teaspoon or so of sugar (especially if you’re using late crop tomatoes – they will be less sweet naturally)
4. Now roughly crush and chop a couple of cloves of garlic (to taste) and sprinkle them on top.
5. Finally, drizzle some extra virgin olive oil carefully zig-zagging across the tops of the tomatoes…be careful not to pour on too much, just a fine trickle will do!
6. Place in the oven for 45 minutes until browned then remove.
7. Leave to rest for a couple of minutes then deglaze the pan – two options for this, either:

• Remove the tomatoes and deglaze with a glass of white or red wine, stock or water – boil up the liquid and scrape off all the caramelised residue in the tray then reduce down and add to the tomatoes – you can use a hand blender to very gently break up any large tomatoes or chunks of garlic (but don’t blend smooth as this will break the seeds and produce a bitter flavour).

or…

• For those who are even more pushed for time, you can actually deglaze the pan with the help of a glass of liquid (wine/stock/water) by just crushing up and heating the tomatoes in the pan all in one go – once the pan’s deglazed the tomato sauce should be thick and slightly caramel in colour.

Tray of Tomatoes – Ready to Roast

 

 

Roast Tomato Sauce