Making Tomato Sauce

In response to the post Canning Tomatoes @codingdefined indicated that in India tomatoes are canned mainly in sauce form. I decided to give this a try. As you can see in the picture above it turned out looking pretty good.

After cutting the tomatoes into chunks and stewing them until tender, my method of making the sauce was using a food mill similar to this one:

I used the term "similar" because my food mill is not this nice. Mine is an antique that once belonged to my wife's grandmother. It's easily sixty to seventy years old. It still works, just not well. Because of this, making the sauce was almost an all day job, slowly grinding the tomatoes through the antique food mill.

But the results coming out of the food mill looked good. Depending on the amount of water in the tomatoes, you end up with something that looks like either a slightly thick tomato juice or a thin tomato soup. The taste I had of it in this form was delicious. I'm looking forward this winter to taking some diced tomatoes and making a tomato soup, should be a great part of dinner on a cold winter evening.

The food mill grinds the meat of the tomato separating the skin and seeds, leaving the soup. To make the sauce the soup is this simmered down to the thickness desired. As the sauce thickens, that great dark red color develops from the brighter red color of simply the tomatoes.

Unfortunately, I do think it's time to retire the antique food mill and get something that works a little better. Maybe an attachment for the stand mixer on the counter. Grinding the tomatoes through the food mill did get me thinking back to some of those great meals my grandmothers cooked in my early years. The effort of using the antique food mill gave me a lot of appreciation for the effort cooking took 60 or 70 years ago. Although I appreciate the effort it took, that doesn't mean I want to re-experience it every time I want a bowl of tomato soup.