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
- 3.2 kg tomatoes
- Cornflour
Instructions
- Use ripe tomatoes and core them, but do not bother peeling. The skin blends fine and it carries a good part of the colour.
- Blend the tomatoes to a puree and allow a tablespoon of cornflour for every six of them. The starch is what gives the sheet enough body to peel off in one piece — without it the leather cracks into shards as it dries.
- Cook the puree in a heavy pan over a medium heat until it thickens noticeably, stirring the whole time. A thin base will catch and scorch, and burnt tomato taints the entire batch.
- Take it off the heat and let it cool. Hot puree poured onto a drying sheet steams underneath and lifts the liner off the tray.
- Pour about a cup per leather onto a solid sheet and spread it into an even layer with a spatula. Keep each leather to a cup exactly, because that is what makes one sheet equal one cup of puree later.
- Dehydrate at 52 °C for about 11 hours. Start checking when the surface has gone from glossy to matt, which happens well before it is finished.
- It is done when the sheet comes away from the liner in one piece and a cooled corner cracks rather than folds. Unlike a fruit leather this one is meant to go brittle, so keep going past the point where it feels pliable.
- Stack the sheets with paper between them in a canning jar, or vacuum-seal them with an oxygen absorber and double-bag them in Mylar. Sealed properly and kept dark they hold a year; to use one, cover it with a cup of boiling water and leave it a quarter of an hour.
