Oven-Dried Tomatoes

There are a few food items I always prepare in advance and store in a refrigerator. Stock (mostly chicken stock and Korean anchovy-kombu broth) and pickled vegetables are the most important among them... and also oven-dried tomatoes.

If you can find really good quality sun-dried tomatoes in the market, you don't need to spend a whole day making these oven-dried tomatoes. However, I often found sundried tomatoes bought from store woody and tasteless - they seem to have stayed too long on the shelves. So, in summer... when the tomatoes are at their peak and most delicious, I make some oven-dried tomatoes which I can use in place of sun-dried tomatoes.

Crunch and juicy fresh tomatoes are wonderful, yet sometimes you will need the slightly leathery texture and concentrated flavor of sun-dried tomatoes for your recipe. I am going to introduce some recipes where the oven-dried tomatoes will work better than fresh tomatoes. But, first thing first... let's make some oven-dried tomatoes today.

Oven-Dried Tomatoes
(Yield: a pack of oven-dried tomatoes / Cooking time: 4-5 hours)

Ingredients:
+ one basket of tomatoes
+ olive oil
+ (optional) aromatics such as thyme, oregano and garlic

Procedures:
1. Preheat your oven at 425°F (218°C).

2. Wash the tomatoes and drain them.


3. Core the tomatoes to remove the stem part, and halve tomatoes through the core.


4. Toss the halved tomatoes in a bowl with a bit of olive oil to coat each tomato with olive oil. (At this stage, you can add aromatics (thyme, oregano and garlic) if you want.)


5. Place the olive oil coated tomatoes in a sheet tray (baking pan) cut side down.


6. Roast the tomatoes in a preheated 425°F (218°C) oven for 20 minutes or until the tomato skins are separated from the flesh.


7. Take the baking pan out of oven and remove tomato skins with tong or tweezers, then place the tomato flesh on another baking pan with wired rack. Cut side up, this time.


8. You will see that a lot of tomato juice has accumulated in the baking pan which we used to roast tomatoes. Please reserve the juice in a small container for later use. The tomato juice will add great flavor to your sauce or vinaigrette.


9. Turn the oven down to 200°F (93°C), and dry the tomatoes for 3-4 hours until the tomatoes are dried but still contain the chewy texture. Drying time varies depending on the tomato sizes.

10. Cool the oven-dried tomatoes completely, transfer to air tight container or plastic bag, and freeze them for use later.