How do you make fresh tomato juice?!
How do you make fresh tomato juice?
How do you make your own tomato juice that tastes like the ones in cans? Same taste, same texture? I love the stuff but i just think it's not a good idea to keep drinking the canned stuff for long. Also because i wanna use organic tomatoes. I've never seen an organic canned tomato juice.
Answers: Fresh tomato juice isn't going to taste like the stuff in cans, because heat processing changes the flavor.
The flavor of tomato juice also varies a lot, depending on the variety of tomato. If you think about it, that makes sense, because the tomatoes taste different, too.
We used to raise tomatoes for Stokley Van-Camp, and we bought our tomato starts from them, too. They were a round tomato, a little bigger than a tennis ball. They were full of gel, which is where all the tomato flavor is - you've noticed that beefsteak tomatoes slice nicely for sandwiches, but they don't have much flavor - and the taste was wonderful.
It's hard to find those tomato plants in garden centers. They want to sell you starts for beefsteak tomatoes like Big Girl and Better Boy, or cherry tomatoes, or plum tomatoes, or the bigger plum-shape tomatoes like Roma or San Marino. But it's the round salad tomato that you want in order to get the juice that tastes most like canned tomato juice.
If you can them yourself, you can match the flavor of Red Gold or Libby, or Stokley Van-Camp. If you don't can them, or you use some other kind of tomato, you're likely to end up with something that tastes as pathetic as Campbell tomato juice.
We've got maybe a week of Indian Summer left, and then we can all cry, "Eli Eli lama sabathani" until the tomatoes return next summer. One is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth - especially in late August, when the tomatoes really start producing.... Squeeze em! maybe you could juice it with celery, carrots, and other veggies that are in the canned juice. it'll add some extra flavor Start with a number of fresh, ripe tomatoes, six perhaps. Wash them. Cut a shallow X at the base. Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for about 10 seconds or so. Carefully peel the skin off of the tomato, starting where you cut the X. Dice the tomatoes and run them through a food mill, which will remove the seeds and any tough membrane. Season the juice with salt and pepper, and optionally season with a pinch of dried oregano or fresh time.
Either chill the juice, or serve immediately over ice and a squeeze of fresh lemon.
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The key is to remove the seeds and then press the meaty part of the tomato through a food mill to give the juice some body.