Pete's Tomato Sauce

Pete's (famous) tomato sauce

This recipe is the result of having an annual surplus of outdoor tomatoes. This sounds dramatic in Dunedin which lies at latitude 46 degrees South and no gap between us and the South Pole. But for several years now I’ve put in some tough tomato plants about November in a sheltered spot and they grow up, sprawl around lazily and flower, then about April, they produce a stack of beautiful, warm, dark red fruit.  I’ve tried all sorts of tomato varieties but keep coming back to Russian Reds, old reliables. When there’s just too many to handle, they’re turned into pulp by heating in a large pot in 3.5kg batches then frozen.

I’ve tried lots of variations and settled on recipe below.

3.5 kg tomatoes
2 onions, peeled and chopped
3 cloves garlic chopped
850 grams sugar
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
teaspoon of curry powder
2 cups malt vinegar
2 tablespoons whole cloves

I heat the chopped tomatoes until pulpy then add all the other ingredients and stir occasionally until about an hour has simmered the mixture into thick sauce. Often I leave it covered on the stove for a repeat boil up the following night. I used to blend the mixture with a wand or food processor but these days I don’t because we enjoy the more textured sauce. Personal taste. Finally pour the warm sauce into jars via a Pyrex jug. It looks great on the shelf and part of our daily meals.