Fresh local toma­toes are so deli­cious in the sum­mer, it is a good time to pre­serve their sun ripen tomato-ey flavour for cook­ing. I came across some nice local toma­toes so I bought some to try can­ning them at home — it is my first time can­ning toma­toes. It is not a dif­fi­cult process. All you need is toma­toes, salt, cit­ric acid or bot­tled lemon juice, and water (proper can­ning jars too!). The fol­low­ing recipe was adapted from Chow Times.

Ingre­di­ents:

For every 500 ml bottle:

• About 1 lb. (400–500 grams) fresh vine ripen tomatoes
• ¼ tsp. pow­dered cit­ric acid OR 1 tbsp. bot­tled lemon juice
  (bot­tled lemon juice has reg­u­lated acid­ity whereas the acid­ity of fresh lemon juice varies)
• ½ tsp. salt (if desired)
• Fresh herbs (if desired — I did not use any since it was my first time)

Method:

1. Score a cross on the bot­tom of the toma­toes with a knife for easy skin removal.
2. Boil toma­toes in hot water for about 30 sec­onds.
   *Remove from water and place them in a cold water bath.*
3. Peel skin.
4. Remove the core (stem end) of the toma­toes with a par­ing knife.
5. Cut toma­toes into halves or quar­ters and place into a pot and cover the bot­tom with water. (I used about 1 cup of water for 2 lbs of toma­toes.) Bring con­tents to a boil in medium high heat. Reduce heat and sim­mer for about 5 min­utes. Sim­mer­ing them will kill the enzymes that causes the liq­uid and solid to sep­a­rate — the process is called ‘Hot Pack’. Add salt if desired.
6. Pre­pare jars for can­ning: rinse jars with warm water, san­i­tize and keep jars and tops in hot water (not boil­ing) until ready to use. Do not put hot con­tents in a cold jar — glass may break! Place the cit­ric acid or lemon juice in the empty san­i­tized jars.
7. Fill jars with pre­pared toma­toes, leave about ½ inch of space from the top of the rim. Use a plas­tic knife or uten­sil to remove air bub­bles in the jar, add more cook­ing liq­uid if required.
8. Wipe rim of the jars, place tops and screw rings (not overly tight!). Place jars into hot water with at least an inch of water above the jars and bring to a boil. Process the jars for 40 min­utes (time from when boil­ing starts). After 40 min­utes, turn off heat, wait until boil­ing sub­sides, care­fully remove jars with­out tilt­ing them. Check seal after 24 hours, the top of a good sealed jar shouldn’t ‘pop’ when pressed with your fin­ger. If it ‘pops’, it means the jar is not vac­uum sealed — you will need to use con­tents as soon as pos­si­ble and store it in the refrig­er­a­tor. Store prop­erly sealed jars in a cool dark place.

I was sur­prised that can­ning toma­toes are so easy, the toma­toes I used is prob­a­bly not suit­able for a pasta sauce but will be good in a soup or stew. This is not can­ning tomato sauce — that is a dif­fer­ent story which will require remov­ing the seeds and milling the toma­toes. Things to be care­ful about is han­dling the hot jars and that clean­li­ness is key!