Homemade Sun-Dried Tomatoes — The Star of This Exotic Italian-Inspired Pasta
As I promised in the last blog, here’s something exotic!
I had sun-dried tomatoes on a pizza — an authentic sourdough Neapolitan pizza — long ago. And then I forgot about it. One day, out of nowhere, sun-dried tomatoes came to my mind. Maybe because that day, the tomatoes mom got were too juicy and plump to ignore.
That day, I decided to make homemade sun-dried tomatoes.
Making sun-dried tomatoes at home
Tomatoes were expensive back then. Those 2–3 months were an era of tomato memes everywhere on the internet. Prices reached nearly ₹150/kg. Mom assured me they’ll come down to ₹20–30/kg, and at that time, you do whatever you want to do with them.
And it did. I got 1 kg of fresh, red, juicy tomatoes to play with.
How to make sun-dried tomatoes?
It’s time-consuming and will demand your attention for a few minutes 3–4 times a day. But it’s extremely simple.
Ideally, you use San Marzano tomatoes because of their seed-to-body ratio and innate sweetness. But any of your everyday tomatoes will work just fine.
Wash your tomatoes and wipe them dry. Now, cut them into two halves. If a tomato is too big, cut it into 4 big slices. Lay them skin-side down on a sieve, a cooling rack or a wire rack. Season them with a good amount of salt.
Salt will help draw out the moisture. Osmosis.
Place your wire rack/cooling rack/sieve on a large tray or a plate. Find a thin, muslin cloth. Now, go to your terrace, find a spot where there’s direct sunlight, cover your tomatoes with muslin cloth and leave them there to dry out. Do not let them sit in direct sunlight.
Muslin cloth will keep the dirt away and won’t let them spoil.
I used to check 3 times a day on my tomatoes — whether they were in enough sunlight and angled towards the sun. After the sunset, bring your tomatoes indoors and place them in a cool and dry place. The next morning, they go out in the direct sunlight again.
My tomatoes took 5 days to dry out. They lost 90–95% of their weight. But they tasted incredible. And the colour, uff! Deep red, almost maroon.
Storing the dried tomatoes
I used olive oil to store them. I put the tomatoes in an airtight glass jar and covered them with olive oil till fully submerged. Then, I added dried herbs to the mix — basil and oregano.
Those herb flavours will be infused into the oil. You can then drizzle that herb-infused oil on pastas, pizzas and salads.
I have had them for around 2 months, and they’re still perfect. I didn’t get a chance to cook anything with them, until last week.
Fusilli with sun-dried tomatoes, bell peppers and broccoli, topped with Parmesan cheese
Sounds fancy, right? You bet it is!
I have read a lot of blogs on how to use sun-dried tomatoes. What I made follows none of those food blogs. It’s a mixture of everything I learnt from them.
Okay, let’s begin.
The ingredients
Half of them I already gave away in the header above, haha! That’s the thing with Italian food, right. Their names are self-explanatory.
Anyway, here’s all you need.
- Fusilli or any pasta you like — 80–100 grams. It’s not a saucy pasta dish, so fusilli or farfalle will work better.
- Sun-dried tomatoes — 8–10 pieces
- Red bell pepper — half
- Yellow bell pepper — half
- Green bell pepper — half
- 12–15 broccoli florets
- 3–4 cloves of garlic
- Fresh cilantro leaves
- Parmesan cheese
- Black pepper
- Chilli flakes
- Dried basil
- Dried oregano
- Olive oil
- Extra-virgin olive oil, infused with herbs
- Water — to cook pasta
- Salt
Once you’ve taken all these out, we move to the next phase.
Preparations = cutting/chopping
No elaborate preparations for this pasta — chop the vegetables, and you’re good to light up the stove.
But before you do all this, take a big saucepot, add a litre of water to it along with one heaped spoon of salt and put it on the stove. Turn on the heat and let it slowly come to a boil.
Then, start by finely chopping the garlic cloves.
Broccoli florets do not need much cutting. Keep them whole. If they’re too big, divide them into two pieces, not smaller than that.
Cut the green, yellow and red bell peppers into long but not too thin pieces.
Wash the cilantro leaves, chop them fine, and keep them aside. That’s our garnish.
By the time you finish all these tasks, the water will be boiling and ready for the pasta.
Cooking the pasta
Before you move on to the vegetables, add the fusilli to the boiling water. I follow the cooking instructions on that wrapper. My pasta packet told me to cook it in boiling water for 10 minutes. You should follow the cooking instructions on your pasta packet. And set a timer for it. That’ll cook them perfectly al dente.
While the pasta cooks, it’ll give us enough time to saute the veggies.
On to the stove, with a pan.
Add some olive oil to the pan and let it heat up. Once hot enough, add the garlic and let it saute for a while, around 5–10 seconds. If you let it sit in the hot oil any longer, it’ll burn.
Immediately go ahead with the bell peppers. Keep the flame medium-high. Add a bit of salt and toss them nicely. Tossing adds that hint of smokey flavour that I love. If you cannot toss, that’s fine. Just give them a nice stir and let them cook for a while.
We want the colours and the crunch of the veggies intact. That’s why we’ve kept the flame high. If you saute them on slow flame, they’ll release their water and become mushy and dull.
Next, the broccoli goes into the pan. High heat, and add a pinch of salt. Toss it well and let it cook for no more than 2–3 minutes.
Okay, we’re almost 8 minutes down — a minute of oil to heat up, garlic and bell peppers 2–3 minutes, and broccoli will take 2–3 minutes.
Sun-dried tomatoes go into the pan now. My tomatoes were submerged in oil. So, I drained the oil nicely and then added them. Saute them with the vegetables for a minute and add black pepper, dried oregano, basil and chilli flakes. Don’t go too heavy on oregano. Instead, basil and tomato is a better flavour combination.
I don’t prefer dishes with a prominent oregano flavour. It reminds me of sub-par restaurants that use mediocre ingredients and try to hide all that with a lot of oregano. Oregano screams Italy. Let me know if you feel the same as well.
Okay, we’re nearing the 10-minute mark. Give it all a quick mix and check for seasonings. Now, with a strainer, add the cooked fusilli from the saucepot to the pan. Mix it well. Do not throw away the starchy pasta water. We’ll use it to make the sauce thick and creamy.
Add a laden full of pasta water and let it reduce. It’ll slowly thicken up as it reduces. As it starts thickening, get your cheese-grater and parmesan cheese and grate a good amount into the pan.
Cheese will help it become creamier and yummier.
Let it cook for a minute or two till you smell some homogenous Italian goodness.
Cut off the heat, sprinkle the chopped cilantro on top and drizzle some herb-infused extra virgin olive oil at the end. If you like more cheese, grate some more parmesan.
And enjoy!
A few things to be cautious about
Okay, I haven’t mentioned these points in the recipe above. But these are some of the minor errors that I made while cooking. I am putting them here so that you can avoid these. Your pasta will turn out better.
- Be mindful of the salt levels and add it in small amounts. And always taste once before adding more.
Why?
Parmesan is salty. We already seasoned the tomatoes while drying them out. We added salt to the pasta water to season the pasta. And we’ll season the vegetables too with salt and pepper. - Add the pasta water little by little. You’ll have a hard time reducing it into the sauce. And in the process, you’ll overcook your pasta. I made this mistake.
- Oil — start with less than usual in the pan. I submerged the tomatoes in oil. Once they hit the pan, they’ll release that oil, and you’ll have more of it than you wanted. We’ll drizzle some at the end as well.
- Be careful of the umami. Tomatoes, once dried, have intense umami. And so does parmesan cheese. I’d advise you to go easy on either tomatoes or cheese. Or both. My pasta was an umami overload, thanks to tomatoes.
Let me know if you found these tips helpful. We learn as we cook. So, I thought I’d share my learnings with y’all.
My thoughts on this recipe…
I loved it. Despite a little extra olive oil and an umami blast, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ll definitely cook it again. And I believe this is the second best way to enjoy sun-dried tomatoes. The best way, I still believe, is a fresh-out-of-the-oven Neapolitan pizza.
If you know more recipes to enjoy these tomatoes, let me know in the comments section!
And you need not have sun-dried tomatoes to make this pasta at your place. Just use whatever is available and experiment. Try flavour combinations that complement each other, and you’ll have a good dish at the end.
Up next?
No clue. I haven’t decided. It has been a busy week. I’ll figure something out. But one thing’s for sure, I won’t miss out on posting a blog.
Consider following me here if you liked what you read. Also, check out my Instagram. I post reels of all the dishes I cook! Here’s the reel of my last recipe.
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.
See ya next week. Godspeed.
