Comments on: Tomato season means it’s time to make passata

By: Cathy

Cathy — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:40:44 +0000

Can anyone recommend somewhere to buy good quantities of roma tomatoes to make passata in North West Melbourne? I have made tomato sauce with my crop from the garden, but fear that I won’t have enough coming for the 150 bottles of passata that I want to knock over this year.

By: rosalie

rosalie — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:37:15 +0000

Does anyone know a place we can purchase homemade italian tomato sauce. My mother has now retired from making them and she will not show me how , She is willing to pay for a few dozen bottles. Melbourne vicinity would be desirable.

Thank you

By: Adriane

Adriane — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:55:02 +0000

Hi Natalie,

I have just finished my last bottle form last year, so assume the life span lasts until the next season. Common sense would be to keep them in a cool cupboard or out of direct sunlight. I don’t think it matters whether the bottles are totally submersed or not, as long as they ‘pop’. And are still ‘popped’ when you go to use them, which mine all were. Can’t help with the lemon as I haven’t heard of it, but sounds interesting.

By: natalie

natalie — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:02:19 +0000

just picked my harvest of toms & cherry toms and will definitely be making passata… just a curious question, how long will the canned jars store for? I have seen tomatoes being canned and they’ve added some lemon to ensure it’s longer shelf life, then the bottles are completely submersed in water until the water pressure itself ‘pops’ the lid.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:57:23 +0000

Hiya Adriane, this has been so helpful. Exactly the type of advice I was looking for, as I live in a small unit in inner city Melbourne. Thanks for your efforts and I look forward to giving this a go! Cheers & mille grazie.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:35:31 +0000

Thank you for this!! Yesterday I harvested the last of my roma and cherry tomatoes from my garden and made 6 x 250ml jars of passata following this, it made it so easy!!
I’m now eager to go buy a box of roma’s and some jars to make more!

By: Julie Carter

Julie Carter — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:30:33 +0000

Hi David
Don’t know if anyone is doing a public bottling in Melbourne, pop up to Sydney for a weekend in March!
We bottled almost a litre for every kilo of tomatoes, but we didn’t cook (therefore we didn’t reduce it). One of my friends asked is it really worth doing, considering you can buy commercial passata for around $2 a bottle. She was back within a week. Her husband has not been able to eat any tomato based dishes at night since he had a severe (almost fatal) case of diverticulitis. He had absolutely no digestion problems with our Carter Passata. The ingredients are completely fresh and unprocessed.

By: David S

David S — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:48:34 +0000

Hi,

Julie, great to see what you’re organising for up in Sydney. Do you know if such a thing is being organised for down in Melbourne? Ed?

Cheers,
Dave

By: Julie Carter

Julie Carter — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 10:32:03 +0000

Adriane
Loved your blog – at exactly the same time last year, we ran our first passata making day. We invited friends and family and ended up with about 40 eager helpers. Through contacts at Flemington markets, we sourced 200kg of roma tomatoes. I think there are as many recipes for passata as villages in Italy, but most Italians we spoke to in Sydney bottled the fresh passata with our own basil leaves and a little lemon juice, rather than cooking it first.
We used three passata machines and passed the tomatoes (that had been quartered) through twice. Our only problem was finding enough bottles and cleaning them. We then placed the bottles in a half 44gallon drum, on newspaper, covered with water and brought to the boil. Then we simmered for 30 minutes.
Lunch was pasta con sugo, insalata, pane and of course vino!
This year we’ve sourced an electric passata machine which will really cut down on the time. The bottle issue was such a pain, we’re buying new jars. There was such a demand, we are running two this year – on the 20th and 27th March. We found the teenagers and kids were just as involved as the adults. They must have watched Waiting for Alibrandi. If anyone is interested, you can contact us on info@culinaryinterludestuscany.com

By: David S

David S — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:04:32 +0000

Hi – thanks for this post! I tried it at home with standard tomatoes (can’t remember the name of the varierty) which cost a fortune as I bought them at the side of the road out of season – I just wanted to do it so much! Anyway, out of 4kgs, I only got 2 x 750ml bottles and I think it is pretty thin.

So! Does the tomato type massively impact the amount of sugo(!?) you get? I only reduced it for about 4.5 hours, not the 6 hours suggested.

Loved the sealing bit though – never knew how to do that!

Any comments greatly received!
Cheers,
Dave