Tomatoes in Their Own Juice
This is the most useful tomato jar of all: no vinegar, no excess sugar, just tomatoes in tomatoes. In winter one jar replaces both tomato paste and fresh tomatoes in borscht. The fruit's own acidity does the preserving, which is why the jars are properly sterilised rather than simply filled.
- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- 20 min
- Total
- 1 h
- Servings
- 10
- Level
- Medium
- Per serving
- 30 kcal
Ingredients
Makes: 2 jars, 1 l each
Shopping list
The ingredients for the servings you chose — copy them or send them to a messenger. Tick what you already have at home: only the rest goes on the list.
Method
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Step 1: Peel the tomatoes
Cut a cross in the base of the firm tomatoes, dip them in boiling water for 40 seconds, then into cold water — the skins slip off.
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Step 2: Make the juice
Chop the fleshy tomatoes, blitz them and push through a sieve to remove seeds and skin.
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Step 3: Cook the juice
Bring the juice to the boil, add salt, sugar, bay and peppercorns and simmer for 10 minutes, skimming the foam.
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Step 4: Pack the jars
Pack the peeled tomatoes into sterilised jars closely but gently, without crushing them.
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Step 5: Fill
Pour in the boiling juice up to the shoulder of the jar, leaving 1 cm below the rim.
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Step 6: Sterilise
Add ½ tsp of citric acid to every one-litre jar. Stand the jars in a pan of warm water up to their shoulders and hold them for 85 minutes from the moment it boils — that is what it takes to heat the middle of the jar.
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Step 7: Seal
Lift out, seal at once, turn upside down and leave under a blanket until cold.
Tips & variations
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Tip
The citric acid is not optional. Modern tomato varieties often sit right at the edge of the acidity that holds botulism back, and you cannot tell by taste or by looking. Half a teaspoon per litre changes nothing on the plate.
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Variation
Add a garlic clove and a sprig of basil to the juice and you have a ready pasta base.
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Tip
Do not fill to the very rim: the juice rises during sterilising and can lift the lid.
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Storage
A year in a cool dark place. Use an opened jar within 3 days.
Nutrition
| 1 serving | Whole dish 10 servings | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 30 kcal | 300 kcal |
| Protein | 1 g | 10 g |
| Fat | 0 g | 0 g |
| Carbohydrates | 6 g | 60 g |
Approximate values calculated from standard ingredient data.
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