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Sundried tomatoes

Sundried tomatoes are one of my favourite foods on earth. They perk up any dish, and are superb as snacks with a little feta and the odd olive. They’re also irritatingly expensive to buy, so I decided to use some of my glut of heritage tomatoes to make my own.

This is a pretty simple recipe: all it requires is a bit of vigilance once the tomatoes are in the oven. I sliced a heap of tomatoes into slices 1-2cm thick, threw them into a roasting dish, drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled with basil and 1 and a half teaspoons of sugar and a pinch of salt.

I then roasted them very slowly in my oven at 150 degrees for two and a half hours, checking on them every so often to make sure they weren’t sticking to the bottom of the dish. Once they had dried nicely, I carefully lifted them onto a rack, which I then placed back in the oven for another two hours to shrivel and dry them.

And hey presto! I had sweet, intense sundried tomatoes to nibble on and to chuck into pasta dishes. These tomatoes will keep in the fridge for about four days, or else I could seal them in oil in a sterilised jar if I wanted to preserve them into the tomato-less winter months.

As you know, I grow a lot of different types of tomatoes, and I always try new types out when slow-roasting. Over the years, I’ve found that the best tomato varieties for this are those with thick, dry flesh, rather than those with a high juice content.

I’d recommend ‘Egyptian’, which has thick, dry flesh and such a strong, smoky, odd flavour, ‘Hugh’s‘, which is a yellow variety with plenty of thick, dry sweet-flavoured flesh, and the beautiful ‘Zapotec Pleated’.

If you want to learn how to grow tomatoes, read the Good Growing Guide: simple, easy growing advice on a postcard.

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