How to Blanch and Deseed Tomatoes
December 11th, 2010 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
Total cooking time: 15min
Blanching and deseeding tomatoes may seem like a hassle considering big choice of canned already blanched and deseeded tomatoes in a nearby grocery shop.
However, I think no canned tomatoes or tomato paste can compare with the fresh tomatoes blanched and deseeded right before cooking.
Blanched and sometimes also deseeded tomatoes are used to cook soups and stews, as well as to prepare tomato juice, tomato paste, various dips and sauces.
Ingredients:
- Tomatoes
- Water
Step-by-step instructions:
- Take tomatoes: I find plum tomatoes easiest to blanch, but any other will work just as good:
- Fill cooking pot with water and bring to boil. While water is getting ready, cut skin on each tomato tip cross-like with a knife:
- Put all tomatoes to hard boiling water at the same time:
- Keep tomatoes boiling for about 20-22 seconds (if you boil them longer it will be easier to remove skin, but also tomatoes will become softer and it will be harder to deseed them). So, after 20 secs remove cooking pot from the burner, pour hot water out and put cooking pot with tomatoes unter running cold water, let them cool down completely:
- Then take tomato and peel skin at the tip:
- Continue peeling until you reach stem:
- Repeat with other sides:
- Pull skin at the stem side and remove it:
- Repeat with other tomatoes: now they all are blanched and you can stop here if you recipe doesn’t require deseeding:
- To deseed cut each tomato in half:
- Remove stem part from half of tomato using small knife:
- Cut middle part with seeds off:
- And carefully remove seeds:
- After you are done, you will get clean tomato half:
- Repeat with the rest:
- Depending on what your recipe requires, you may use blanched and deseeded tomato halves as is, or stick them into blender cup:
- And prepare perfect base for tomato sauce, tomato paste or a tasty addition for soup or stew:
Great job making what seemed hard so easy! Forever Grateful in Florida
Very nice. Thank you.
This was just what I needed. Fast and accurate! It made my blanching of a peck of tomatoes so much easier! I had an ice bath standing by and just pulled them out with a pasta scoop (to let hot water drain off) and dropped them in the pot of ice water to chill them quickly.
It was really quick! Every so often I just tossed in another handful of ice from the freezer.
Thanks!