Dried tomatoes in olive oil?

16 years ago

I often dry tomatoes for use in soups or to powder for marinades or dressings. I decided to see about making my own dried tomatoes in olive oil a few months ago, using some of my last year's crop.

Not thinking to look up the procedure ahead of time, I just packed a clean jar with dried tomatoes and covered them with olive oil. This went into the fridge, and I forgot about it. Well, a couple of months later, I was cleaning the fridge and came across it. Naturally, the olive oil was congealed. Upon letting it come to room temp, I found I had a bunch of dried tomatoes, still resisting the oil. So, thinking it might be because of the chill, I left the jar on the counter for several weeks. Little change. They are simply not soaking up the oil.

Apparently, I was meant to slightly rehydrate the tomatoes before packing them in the oil.

So now what do I do? Is there any way to rescue my experiment, or shall I just puree the whole mess and strain it, hoping for some tomato flavored oil?

Also, if any of you have packed your own tomatoes in olive oil successfully, will you share the procedure?

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Comments (4)

skeip
16 years ago
I copied this from somewhere on the GW forums, probably Harvest, and I'm sorry I don't know who to attribute it to. If you're out there please take credit because it's a great technique. And please, throw out that jar you have been playing with. It sounds like it's probably a biohazard by now.

DRIED TOMATOES

Wash, stem and slice each tomato into 1/4" thick slices. Place in a very large bowl or clean bucket and cover with cheap red wine. I use Merlot but if you prefer something else, knock yourself out. I have a friend that swears by cheap Chianti! Soak tomato slices 24 hours in the wine. Drain well. Lay tomatoes just touching on dehydrator shelves or on screen in your sun-drying apparatus. Sprinkle each slice with a mixture containing equal parts of dried basil-oregano-parsley and then sprinkle each slice with Kosher Salt. You may choose to forego the salt if you wish but tomatoes will take longer to dry. Dry tomatoes until they are firm and leatherlike with no moisture pockets, but NOT brittle. (If you get them too dry, soak them in lemon juice for a few minutes.) To store, place in vacuum bags or ziplock bags and freeze.
IMPORTANT!!! If you will be storing sun-dried tomatoes in Olive oil you !!!MUST!!! dip each slice in vinegar before adding to oil.
To pack in oil:
Dip each tomato into a small dish of white wine vinegar. Shake off the excess vinegar and pack them in olive oil adding 1/4 cup red wine. For tomatoes in oil I am selling, I put the tomatoes into the oil two weeks ahead of time and store in the refrigerator. Make sure they are completely immersed in the oil. When the jar is full, cap it tightly. I use my vacuum sealer to seal the canning lids on. Store at *cool* room temperature for at least a month before using. They may be stored in the refrigerator, but the oil will solidify at
refrigerator temperatures (it quickly reliquifies at room temperature however). As tomatoes are removed from the jar, add more olive oil as necessary to keep the remaining tomatoes covered. I have stored oil-packed tomatoes in my root cellar for over a year. . I have tried a number of methods to pack the tomatoes in oil, but the vinegar treatment is the difference between a good dried tomato and a great one. It is also important from a food safety standpoint, as it acidifies the oil and discourages growth of bacteria and mold. Soaking in the wine also acidifies them.
****** WARNING ********
Do *NOT* add fresh garlic cloves or fresh herbs of any kind to oil-packed dried tomatoes, UNLESS you store them in the refrigerator and plan on using them within 7 days. Garlic is a low-acid food which, when placed in oil, creates a low-acid anaerobic environment just
perfect growth medium for botulinum bacteria if the mixture is not refrigerated. Be safe and add your garlic to the dried tomatoes as part of the recipe for them *after* they come out of the oil.

Steve
triciae
16 years ago
rachelellen, I dry large quantities of tomatoes every year but have never tried your experiment. When I want them rehydrated in oil my method is to heat up some olive oil in a saute pan & when just warm...toss in the tomatoes. That's always worked. But, I don't try to store them...only enough for a meal, or two. From dry though they absorb the slightly warmed oil very nicely. I also dry my tomatoes to different degrees of dryness. Those that I'll grind into powder are dried until brittle. Ones I'll use for sauces, soups, breads, etc. I dry a bit less, vac-pac separating each layer w/parchment 'cause they are still sticky, & store in the freezer. They take up very little freezer space...much less room than canned tomato products. I chop them frozen into whatever sizes I want for a particular recipe & into the pan/pot/bowl they go still frozen.

Since I'm one of those cautious ones I'd start over with another batch rather than trying to rescue the ones you've started.

/tricia
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I got this recipe / technique here and have reposted it before. It is the only way to do Dried Tomatoes, they are far superior to anything you can get in the market. I am doubling my Roma tomato planting this year so I have more to dry. DRIED TOMATOES Wash, stem and slice each tomato into 1/4" thick slices. If using Roma-type Tomatoes, slice in half longitudinally and scoop out seeds. Place in a very large bowl or clean bucket and cover with cheap red wine. I use Merlot but if you prefer something else, knock yourself out. I have a friend that swears by cheap Chianti! Soak tomato slices 24 hours in the wine. Drain well. Lay tomatoes just touching on dehydrator shelves or on screen in your sun-drying apparatus. Sprinkle each slice with a mixture containing equal parts of dried basil-oregano-parsley and then sprinkle each slice with Kosher Salt. You may choose to forego the salt if you wish but tomatoes will take longer to dry. Dry tomatoes until they are firm and leatherlike with no moisture pockets, but NOT brittle. (If you get them too dry, soak them in lemon juice for a few minutes.) To store, place in vacuum bags or ziplock bags and freeze. IMPORTANT!!! If you will be storing sun-dried tomatoes in Olive oil you !!!MUST!!! dip each slice in vinegar before adding to oil. To pack in oil: Dip each tomato into a small dish of white wine vinegar. Shake off the excess vinegar and pack them in olive oil adding 1/4 cup red wine. For tomatoes in oil I am selling, I put the tomatoes into the oil two weeks ahead of time and store in the refrigerator. Make sure they are completely immersed in the oil. When the jar is full, cap it tightly. I use my vacuum sealer to seal the canning lids on. Store at *cool* room temperature for at least a month before using. They may be stored in the refrigerator, but the oil will solidify at refrigerator temperatures (it quickly reliquifies at room temperature however). As tomatoes are removed from the jar, add more olive oil as necessary to keep the remaining tomatoes covered. I have stored oil-packed tomatoes in my root cellar for over a year. . I have tried a number of methods to pack the tomatoes in oil, but the vinegar treatment is the difference between a good dried tomato and a great one. It is also important from a food safety standpoint, as it acidifies the oil and discourages growth of bacteria and mold. Soaking in the wine also acidifies them. ****** WARNING ******** Do *NOT* add fresh garlic cloves or fresh herbs of any kind to oil-packed dried tomatoes, UNLESS you store them in the refrigerator and plan on using them within 7 days. Garlic is a low-acid food which, when placed in oil, creates a low-acid anaerobic environment just perfect growth medium for botulinum bacteria if the mixture is not refrigerated. Be safe and add your garlic to the dried tomatoes as part of the recipe for them *after* they come out of the oil. Steve
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> I'm not so worried about the safety factor. The problem is that the tomatoes are dried to a crunch and I've since found out that because they are that dry, they won't absorb the oil. What do you mean you found out? You heard it somewhere, or you tried them? If you tried them, how long had they been in the oil? I'm asking because it doesn't make sense to me -- I would think that, if anything, more dry would mean more absorption. But I bet it takes a few months, either way. >I should have only dried them to the leathery stage. I'm wondering now, since I saw wine used in one recipe, if I could strain off the oil, then mix them with the wine to slightly rehydrate them, then repack them in the jar with the oil? If it were me, I would fish out, like, 3 slices and try the wine thing on them, see if it's worth the nbother :). They might absorb the wine, or their oil coating might prevent that. But the result can't be anything but delicious either way, right?
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Eileen, all you have to do is pick all your green ones, bring them in the house and they will all ripen/turn red. You can also pull the whole plant out of the ground and hang it in a garage or barn and they will all continue to ripen. To encourage ripening on the vine outside, discontinue watering. I don't know if you could dry green ones (can't see why not) but they sure would be bitter and I don't know what you would use them for. You could use fresh green ones for salsa verde or fried green tomatoes. Earl, smaller types I slice length wise. Bigger types, stem end down to bottom. I grow only paste types so few seeds, which I remove most of. If you are using tom's with a lot of seeds, you should probably remove them as they get pretty bitter. And I know seeding tomatoes (other than in a squeezo or something) is a huge pain-in-the-butt! Cutting slices that are the same thickness is important because then your slices will dry at a similar rate of speed and you don't have to keep picking through the trays on the dehydrator taking out the ones that dried the quickest. Also, I have a commercial dehydrator so mine has 1/2" metal squares. I spray the trays with pam to avoid sticking. Most home dehydrators have teflon trays but if not, the Pam works really well.
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I have nothing at all constructive to add but this anecdote. Years ago, a group of us were at a restaurant for brunch and the heavily accented waiter came over to tell us the day's specials. He kept mentioning Sandra tomatoes, pronounced like this. San (rhymes with Don) - dra (rolling the r). Sandra tomatoes, sandra tomatoes. He said it maybe six or seven times! After he left I was asking my companions, what in the heck are Sandra tomatoes? Yeah, you guest it, he was really saying SUN-DRIED tomatoes! Ever since then, in my mind, they will always be sandra tomatoes, pronounced with the accent and rolling R.
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rachelellen
Original Author
16 years ago
"It sounds like it's probably a biohazard by now."

LOL!

Yeah, you are probably right. I don't know what I was thinking. I hate throwing out a a whole jar of them (and the oil!) but that's what I get for not taking the time to google up how to do it first.

Oh well, I'll have plenty from this year's crop to replace them with. ;)
readinglady
16 years ago
The basic method quoted above from Harvest was posted by Brokenbar and is a variation of a formula from UC Davis.

The acidification is very important for long-term safety. I would throw those tomatoes far, far away.

I linked to the UC Davis document below.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Dried Tomatoes in Oil

Dried tomatoes in olive oil?

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skeip

triciae

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Dried tomatoes in olive oil?

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skeip

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