Nearly Instant Fresh Tomato Puree

Don’t you just hate it when a recipe calls for “1 large tomato, pureed”?  I do, even when it’s my own recipe. It sounds like so much work, though I know that the texture and flavor will be excellent. (Sauce is so smooth and during summer, who wants to succumb to canned tomato?) When a recipe, such as a pasta sauce, calls for lots of fresh tomato pureed, I halve the tomatoes and briefly cook them to soften before putting them through a food mill.

Today, I made an Indian egg and spiced tomato sauce dish for lunch and the recipe called for “1 large tomato, pureed.” Kitchen dread set in. I didn’t want to go through my normal procedure for such a small quantity. 

Instead, I reached for my cheap cheese grater. I’ve had the grater for years and it’s one of my go-to kitchen tools. Because it is not terribly sharp, I can really go to town with grating vegetables such as tomato without having to worry about taking off a piece of my fingertip. The grater is a plane type so it sits atop a bowl. The bowl catches all the tomato goodness. 

For the “1 large tomato, pureed,” I used four (4) small ripe tomatoes that I purchased from the farmers’ market yesterday. I halved each crosswise and grated them, pressing on the skin to extract the flesh and juice. Within minutes, I had a rough fresh tomato puree. All that was left was a heap of skin.

(By the way, when you need a light tomato flavor for pizza, this kind of instant fresh tomato puree works well!)

Related Post: North Indian Egg Curry (Anda Masala)

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