This new tool is the love of my life – it’s a Rigamonti Passata machine. 100 times faster and easier than my old mouli which though its churned out litres and litres of tomatoes over the years, I wasn’t sad to see go. Heartless.
Roasted tomato pasatta is my go to – its so delicious, but when things are hectic and there’s a basket of tomatoes that need using I go really simple and process them raw.
Compared to the mouli, the rigamonti is a dream. Pop the raw tomatoes in the top, turn the handle and the skins shoot out the side and the flesh and juice out the front into the bowl.
Same as when you use a mouli, you need to put the skins back through the machine a few more times to extract every last drop. So much flavour under the skins!
From todays harvest of 3.3kg of tomatoes I get x5 600ml bottles of pasatta with only 172g of waste for the compost bin. (You can of course whizz your tomatoes up whole and include skin and all if you like it like that. )
If you are processing in a water bath (or in my case a stock pot with a towel on the bottom), sterilise your jars and leave them to cool. Then put 1 teaspoon of salt and 1Tablespoon of lemon juice in the bottom and fill with pasatta. Heat process for 40mins.
If you are going overflow styles – sterilise your jars and bring your pasatta to the boil in a pot. Add basil, garlic, oregano – whatever you like. Bottle into hot jars and seal.
Such simple components! and easy as to dismantle and clean.
I couldn’t find one of these wondrous things in NZ, but I tracked one down over the ditch. Andy and Donna at Bake and Brew were happy as to send me one over.