Garlic Tomato ... Paste?

[David Sundstrom]

Tonight was a night to use up some leftovers. I had a few boxes of cherry tomatoes that were going bad so I puréed them in the food processor. I then added a few cloves of garlic. Not garlicky enough to my liking I added more garlic when suddenly my sauce thickened to a paste. What chemistry is going on here? It was like an emulsion but there was no oil. Just the tomatoes, garlic, and some salt. Did I simply entrap air?

It was tasty. Mixed with some left over rice and ground venison and onion, and then stuffed into bell peppers and baked. A good weeknight meal.

[heidih]

I have found garlic to be an emulsifier. Sounds like a winning moment.

[TheTInCook]

Read this article and the comments.Some insight.

http://blog.khymos.org/2010/12/17/gelling-ketchup-with-horseradish/

[thirtyoneknots]

I remember reading somewhere (Peterson's Sauces, maybe?) that the original aioli had no egg at all, and was just olive oil emulsified with what I figured must be a shocking amount of garlic. If true, probably used the same phenomenon.

[David Sundstrom]

Thanks for the link. After further study, I think the outcome was gelation of the tomato pectins from the enzymes in garlic. Gelation is a problem in the food industry; here is one paper that discusses the problem of using dried onion or garlic powders: http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-395.pdf

[jrshaul]

Could this be used to make a garlic-tomato jam? Has anyone done anything like this?