oven-dried tomatoes

I find commercially produced ‘sun-dried’ tomatoes are often lip-pursingly intense, sharp and sometimes a little leathery. Home-dried ones are altogether different. The beauty of drying your own is that you can control their plumpness, sweetness and chewiness. Here I’m aiming for a semi-dried state – intense but still a touch juicy.

This is also, I must concede, a good way to use out-of-season or less-full-flavoured tomatoes, as the seasoning and drying will bring out the best in them. Dried tomatoes are delicious stirred into salads, pasta or couscous, or just served as a piquant nibble with a selection of other dishes. Try them also in a sandwich with goat’s cheese, in a frittata with potatoes and onions, or even stirred into scrambled eggs.

SERVES 4-6

1kg tomatoes

A few sprigs of thyme, broken up

3 bay leaves, each snipped into 2 or 3 pieces

2-3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for storage

Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Halve the tomatoes, or quarter particularly large ones. Scoop out and discard the seeds, if you prefer. Stand a wire rack over a double sheet of newspaper.

Combine the sugar with 1/2 teaspoon fine salt in a small bowl. Sprinkle a tiny pinch of this mixture over the inside of each tomato half, then put the tomatoes upside down on the rack. Leave for 1 hour for the juices to drip.

Preheat the oven to very low, about 100°C*/Gas Mark 1/4. Transfer the tomatoes, turning them cut side up, to a large baking tray. Scatter with the thyme, bay, some black pepper and the olive oil and place in the oven. Check after an hour or two – just in case your oven is hotter than it says! It should take 4-5 hours to get the tomatoes ‘semi-dried’: ie considerably reduced but still quite tender and plump. This is how I like them. However, you can leave them in the oven for 7-8 hours – to become much more like commercial ‘sun-dried’ tomatoes.

Tossed in a generous amount of olive oil, these oven-dried tomatoes will keep for a few days in the fridge. You’ll find endless uses for them.

* 100°C = 200-225°F

Recipe copied from “River Cottage Veg Every Day!”

First published in Great Britain 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing

Text © 2011 by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Photography © 2011 by Simon Wheeler