In France during the Middle Ages, confit cooking was used to guarantee long-lasting preservation for some foods. This is very long, low-temperature cooking which causes the vegetation water to evaporate while keeping the flavors and colors of the food intact.
Many years ago, I discovered this wonderful recipe on the blog “Fables de sucre.” I fell in love with it.
It is a perfect way to save a taste of summer to enjoy during the winter or to give to your closest friends. With these cherry tomatoes, you can prepare a divine, quick sauce!
Cherry tomatoes confit
- Preparation time: 120 minutes
- For 4 cans of 250 grams
- Difficulty: Average difficulty recipe
- Ingredients
- 5 lb. (2 kg) of cherry tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- Pepper as needed
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Fresh thyme to taste
- 4 cloves of garlic
- Instructions
- Wash the tomatoes well under running water. Dry them and cut them in half.
- Preheat the oven to 250° F fan.
- Put the parchment paper on the trays and arrange all the tomatoes with the cut facing upwards.
Season with a drizzle of oil, salt, pepper, fresh thyme, and garlic. Also sprinkle with granulated sugar. - Bake the cherry tomatoes in the oven for about two hours until they are well dried. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
- Eliminate the garlic and thyme.
- Take the previously sterilized jars in the oven at 250° F for at least an hour.
- Fill the jars with cherry tomatoes, pressing them well. Cover them well with oil.
- Close with the caps and sterilize them again.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- You can also use other aromatic plants, such as oregano or marjoram. I prefer thyme.
- Pour the extra virgin olive oil in the jar several times to be sure it covers all the tomatoes well.
- Not having an autoclave at very high temperatures, sterilization in a domestic environment is more similar to sanitization. It must be done anyway.
- For the final sterilization, the jars are placed in a saucepan. The pot is filled with water which must exceed the cap of the jars by 5 cm, then it’s put on the heat. As soon as the water boils, it takes about twenty minutes for 250-gram cans and thirty minutes for 500-gram cans. Turn off the heat and leave all the jars in the water until completely cooled. The jars should be vacuum-packed as soon as the water cools. Jars that have not been vacuum-packed must be consumed immediately and cannot be placed in the pantry.
