Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 295 kcal | 84 kcal |
| Protein | 14.7 g | 4.2 g |
| Fat | 3.3 g | 0.9 g |
| saturated | 0.5 g | 0.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 44.2 g | 12.5 g |
| sugars | 42.5 g | 12.1 g |
| Fibre | 19.6 g | 5.6 g |
| Sodium | 82 mg | 23 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 1.1 kg tomatoes, washed and cored
- Cooking spray
Instructions
- Use ripe or over-ripe tomatoes, the ones too soft for a salad. Sugar and flavour both rise as a tomato goes past its best, and the extra water they carry is going to leave anyway.
- Core them but keep the seeds and the jelly around them. That jelly holds most of the glutamate, and it is the whole reason this powder tastes savoury rather than merely red.
- Slice to 3 mm or thinner. Tomato is almost entirely water, and a thick slice takes twice as long without tasting any better for it.
- Give the trays a light film of cooking spray and lay the slices out flat. Tomato sugar sets like glue, and a slice welded to mesh comes off in flakes you cannot grind.
- Dry at 66 °C for 4 hours, and keep going past that if anything is still flexible. For powder there is no such thing as slightly too dry — a leathery slice is fine to eat and useless in a grinder.
- A finished slice shatters when you press it against the tray with a fingertip and shows no darker translucent patch through the middle. Let the trays cool before judging, because tomato stays pliable while it is warm.
- Blitz the cold slices in short bursts. Running the blender continuously heats the blade, and warm tomato powder cakes into a solid puck in the bottom of the jug.
- Sieve the powder and put the coarse bits back through. A first grind always comes out part powder and part flake, and the flakes are what clump in storage.
- Jar it with a desiccant sachet and keep it dark. It stays bright red for about six months and then fades to brick, which is your sign it has lost most of its smell too.
