Oven-Dried Plum Tomatoes

What do blood cells, McGill University, Peru, pink and wines have in common? This is the theme of our recent cooking session. I'll start with my contribution of the evening. For appetizers, I wanted to make something on my Must-do list and one that came to mind was this simple and flavor-packed oven-roasted cherry tomatoes when I was at Aimee's summer potluck. Here is her post on Simple Bites. You can also find an alternative version of our local food blogger Elaine on A Series of Kitchen Experiments. 

Plum tomatoes were on sale and I read a scientific article (found here) that plum tomatoes take less time to dehydrate than "regular" tomatoes because of the moisture content. This requires less than 10 minutes of your time to prepare this appetizer, but a lot of time to dry the tomatoes about 6-8 hours or overnight. Here's a tip: if you don't feel comfortable of leaving your oven on for that long, make it at a friend's place whose his electricity is included in the rent. This is what I did. Serve these tomatoes with multigrain crackers and soft spreadable cheese such as Boursin Herbs and Garlic. I can guarantee you that your guests won't resist of eating more than one.

Preparation: 10 mins

Roasting Time: 6-8 hours

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

12 plum tomatoes, quartered

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Place plum tomatoes in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

3. Line a baking sheet with aluminium foil or parchment paper. Arrange tomatoes skin side-down.

4. Set oven to your lowest heat setting. Bake for 6-8 hours until edges have shriveled and inside still moist but not juicy.

5. Serve with soft cheese and crackers.

Preserving oven-dried tomatoes

Transfer tomatoes in a clean and sterilized jar, pour olive oil to cover. You can add a crushed garlic and a few sprigs of fresh herb such as oregano and marjoram. Preserve up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

After a few days, give a nice roasted tomato flavor to your dishes (or salads) with the preserved tomato oil.