A few weeks back I stumbled upon Shaheen's food blog, the purple foodie. I immediately fell in love with the layout of the blog. With further exploration I also realised how much she loved to cook, especially bake. Sifting through some of the recipes, I decided to try 'oven-dried tomatoes' partly because the ingredients were lying at home apart from my liking for sun-dried tomatoes.
The recipe is easy, and a little lengthy, but certainly not as complicated as real sun-dried tomatoes!
Ingredients-
- Tomatoes - if you find the seasonal deshi-tomatoes, then even better!
- Garlic
- Oregano
- Pepper
- Salt
- Oven
- Cut the tomatoes in half or smaller pieces depending upon your liking (I bought the non-deshi tomatoes which were small in size and hence halved them)
- Scoop out all the seeds
- Roll the cut tomatoes generously in salt and keep them skin-up for upto one hour to remove any excess water (After one hour I drained the water and re-applied the salt as the tomatoes were still watery)
- Once most water has been drained off, coat the tomatoes in oregano, pepper, finely chopped garlic and lay in a baking dish
- Sprinkle a little olive oil on it
- Put the dish in the oven for about 2 hours at the lowest possible temperature. (I kept it for 3 intervals of one hour each on 110 degree Celsius If you think the tomatoes are still juicy, you can keep it in the oven for longer.)
- Eat with sandwichs, pizzas or as a snack!
Store the tomatoes in an air-tight container. Also, don't be too generous with the sprinkling of the garlic and oregano, it will take away the essence of the tomato!
Preparation time: approximately 4 hours
USP: Matches up to the real thing!