Fresh Tomatoes Vs. Canned Tomatoes

[Edward]

Hello Everybody,

Fresh tomatoes here in the US are so inconsistent in quality, even at peak season. In order to ensure good results for my students or anyone else who might be using one of my recipes I now, pretty much always, test my recipes for gravy-type dishes with canned tomatoes and canned tomato puree. I especially like the canned tomato puree. It always thickens the sauce nicely and does not need to be cooked down with the masalas before you add the water, meat or vegetables.

I like the flavor of fresh tomatoes, but I find a need to make adjustments each time I cook the same thing with the same recipe. That is fine for me, but not for someone who is following a recipe.

What are your opinions on this? What has your experience been?

[foodietraveler]

Mummy always used Parmalait Tomatoes, I think she says the chopped ones are good to use when fresh tomatoes are not ripe. I cook my Indian recipes using them. Also make pasta with them.

But if you have good ripe flavorful tomatoes, fresh are best.

Monica and Suvir can give us better advice about their experiences.

[bong]

We use both. When we need a small amount, we use the fresh one, yes even the lousy big-supermarket-thing-they-call-a-tomato. Otherwise, we use the canned variety.

[tryska]

i've used both. i like the idea of fresh tomatoes, but more often than not, i end up with a watery mess containing lots of skins.

so i'm back to canned sauce which is what i grew up with. much smoother and more consistent.

[Pompollo]

Putting the taste factor aside for the moment, I end up using canned at least 95% of the time, whether it is for Indian or Italian.

The reason is simply based on the mess factor and the time involved with doing it from "scratch" the right way, which takes time and leaves a mess to clean up. With cans I need to do no more than turn the can-opener and toss out can. Moreoever, as stated elsewhere, it's hard to find tomatoes good enough to use for sauce.

When I have the time; when I can get a lot of good, red-ripe tomatoes; and when I want be as authentic as possible, then I will make sauce from real tomatoes. I spend a lot of time doing it: I blanch tomatoes in hot water, peel the skin, remove all the seeds and water, to get only the pulp. Simply cutting up tomatoes and throwing them in the pan with juice, seeds, skin works in some dishes, (aloo gobhi) but to get a real nice sauce consistency that is needed in for example Murg Makhani, then I have found I have to go to this bother and mess. It's worth it, but I can't do it all the time, so I find canned makes so much more sense.

Also, when you deal with canned, you have the added benefit of a consistant amount on hand. It's frustrating, even after I have gone through all the bother to make the sauce from fresh tomatoes, I have found out I didn't get enough so I end up having to have to add canned anyway

[intraining]

let's see,

for any dish that i need to make a tomatoe sauce for, i'll use whole peeled tomatoes only and will always add fresh tomatoe concasse (or my version of it) near the end. do not enjoy cooking with puree, chopped is ok sometimes, but when my wife goes shopping, who knows what i'll be cooking with!

[rkolluri]

I end up using canned tomatoes a lot for indian food. I first started doing it many years ago after seeing a $9 line item on my grocery bill for tomatoes. Nowadays I actually prefer canned tomatoes for gravies that are cooked for a long time and have a lot of spices. I seem to get more consistent results that way.

However, if I do find a good batch of ripe tomatoes and am patient in the cooking process, I feel like I get really good results. Perhaps, its just my need to believe that fresh is better than canned, but a gravy made with good fresh tomatoes seems to look and taste better.

rkolluri