Recipe for Fresh Tomato Sauce with Ginger and Aromatic Herbs

If your tomatoes are not organic or from the garden, one piece of advice: remove the skin. Otherwise, leave it. Then blend them or strain them (if the skin in the tomato sauce bothers you) or leave them as they are. Personally, I leave it because these tomatoes come from a local garden and my own garden, and they are 100% organic. If you want to remove the skin from your tomatoes, here’s how to proceed: remove the stem of the tomato and make a cross-shaped incision on the opposite side. Dip the tomatoes for 10 seconds in a pot of boiling water. Then plunge them into an ice water bath. They will peel very easily.

Peel the onions and slice them, peel the garlic cloves and slice them as well. Wash the tomatoes and cut them into pieces. Place them in a dish to let some of their water drain. Peel the piece of ginger and cut it into slices.

Heat the oil in a large pot. Sauté the onion and garlic for a few minutes. Then add the diced tomatoes, ginger, bay leaves, basil, and thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer uncovered for 30 minutes to 3 hours until the desired texture and flavors are reached, depending on the weight of tomatoes used at the start (for an amount of 5 kg, as I had prepared two years ago, I let it simmer for 3 hours!). Stir occasionally.

Remove the bay leaf and thyme, and pass the preparation through a food mill or simply blend it with an immersion blender (which is what I did). If the sauce is too runny, return it to the pot and reduce it over low heat. Adjust the seasoning if needed. Add sugar if the tomatoes are acidic. Not needed for me!

Scald bottles or jars as well as the lids and seals (in boiling water and then left to dry in the oven at 120°C for 10 minutes) and then pour the hot tomato sauce in, up to 2 cm from the rim. Be careful not to spill any on the edges and clean them if necessary. You can add a few leaves of fresh basil that have been washed and dried before sealing.

Place a cloth at the bottom of a pot, set the jars and/or bottles inside, and fit one or more cloths between them to prevent them from clinking together. Cover with warm water and bring to a boil for 45 minutes (adding hot water if necessary). Allow to cool in the pot before removing the jars. Store in a dry, cool place, away from light, for a maximum of 1 year.

To finish, freeze the sauce: let it cool, then pour it into containers and keep in the freezer for a maximum of two months.