Bitter taste off canned chopped tomatoes.

newmug

Hi all. I'm new to cooking, so this has probably been answered before. But lately, I've been trying to recreate some pasta dishes that you'd find in Italian restaurants, but I always find that cans of chopped tomatoes taste very bitter. How can you get them to taste sweeter? Today I put half a kilo of sugar in the pan with 2 400g cans of tomatoes to try and balance out the taste, and it still wasn't enough! Surely there must be another way, surely restaurants and takeaways don't put that much sugar in their food?

Faith

You're exaggerating the half kilo of sugar, right?

Tinned tomatoes are always more acidic than fresh, and you'd usually add one teaspoon per tin. The alternative is just to use fresh tomatoes.

What else did you use in the sauce?

newmug

No I am not exaggerating! I used flora cooking oil, then I chopped up about 4 scallions and 2 cloves of garlic and threw them into the pan, then I put in a 10 meatballs, let them cook, then I put in the 2 cans of tomatoes. Everything was going grand until then, you could smell the flavours etc., but the canned tomatoes killed everything. A few minutes later, I tasted it, it just tasted like bitter tomatoes. I gradually kept adding sugar until it got half-decent, and by that stage, half a 1 kilo bag was gone in. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Mr Magnolia

Jaysus, a half a kilo. Sounds more like tomato jam!

Cook off your onion and garlic then add the canned tomatoes, bring to the boil and simmer for about 15min. I'd normally add a spoon of honey instead of sugar. Taste your sauce at this stage and season as required. Brown your meatballs in a separate pan and add to the sauce once you're happy with it.

Faith

Yeah, you usually want to cook a tomato sauce for a minimum of half an hour. Some people will leave it simmer for hours. Fresh basil could help with the bitterness too, possibly.

Mr Simpson

500g of sugar in a tomato sauce :eek:

darrcow

to lose the bitter/acidic taste from tinned tomatoes. make your sauce as normal but just before serving add a gastric. which is equal quantities of sugar and malt vinegar boil to make a syrup then add small amounts to sauce until happy with the taste

Mr Benevolent

Sugar doesn't change bitterness, salt does though.

podger456

I'd normally add a carrot when making tomato soup. You could try that, and remove at the end of cooking, should the edge off the acidity. But if you need to add half a kilo of sugar I think it might be more that you just don't like the taste of tomatoes, and this probably won't help you much.

Alun

OP might also be using cheap canned tomatoes. I've found the Roma organic ones to be one of the nicest available in mainstream stores. I usually add a dollop of tomato purée to my tomato sauces as well.

mossy2

Hello there

I usually buy the cans of peeled tomatoes rather than chopped. I think they're nicer. They're easy to break up in the pan using a potato masher.. I agree with the earlier poster who recommends buying a good quality brand, at least while you are experimenting, and see if that helps.

Also, you could try Mercella Hazan's tomato and butter sauce which has a nice - well - buttery flavour and isn't bitter.

http://www.food.com/recipe/the-simplest-tomato-sauce-ever-marcella-hazan-273976

huskerdu

The basic problem is that you haven't cooked it enough.

If you let it simmer it for 30 minutes or even better 1 hr, the bitter acidic taste of the raw canned tomatoes will be gone, the flavours will be rounded and beautiful.

If you dont cook it it wont matter if you use cheap tinned tomatoes or expensive ones.

Cheshire Cat

Another suspect might be the garlic. It can very easily turn bitter when it turns too brown. Make sure you only sweat the garlic and onion until they are translucent. Don't brown them! Then let the sauce simmer as long as you can (as mentioned before).

newmug

huskerdu wrote: »

The basic problem is that you haven't cooked it enough.

If you let it simmer it for 30 minutes or even better 1 hr, the bitter acidic taste of the raw canned tomatoes will be gone, the flavours will be rounded and beautiful.

If you dont cook it it wont matter if you use cheap tinned tomatoes or expensive ones.

I think this is the key. In my mind, I was only heating the tomatoes up, the entire concoction was no more than 15 minutes on the pan. I have tried different brands of canned tomato, it made no difference really to this bitterness I'm talking about. Next time I'll simmer the bejaypers out of it and see what happens.

Re the garlic and scallion, I don't really understand what you're all saying about not overcooking them. Surely if you sweat them in the pan, then put in the canned tomatoes and let it all simmer for an hour, you'd also be cooking the garlic for that extra hour? Do you mean do them separately and then add them at the end?

Cheshire Cat

newmug wrote: »

Re the garlic and scallion, I don't really understand what you're all saying about not overcooking them. Surely if you sweat them in the pan, then put in the canned tomatoes and let it all simmer for an hour, you'd also be cooking the garlic for that extra hour? Do you mean do them separately and then add them at the end?

No need to do the garlic/onions separately. Just make sure you don't brown the garlic. Once the tomatoes/liquid has been added you don't need to worry about it any more. I let my Bolognese simmer for a minimum of 2 hours it always comes out lovely and doesn't need more than a teaspoon or two of sugar for a big (28cm) pot.

Karey

I find a tablespoon of tomato ketchup acts very well as a sweetener to canned tomatoes.

belcampprisoner

use fresh tomatoes


http://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Acid-in-Tomato-Dishes

hardCopy

belcampprisoner wrote: »

use fresh tomatoes


http://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Acid-in-Tomato-Dishes

It shouldn't be necessary to use fresh tomatoes and it's not easy to find san marzanos or similar tomatoes in the local supermarket. I don't think you'd get the same depth of flavour from a regular net of salad tomatoes either.

It does sound like they just need to be cooked slower and longer in this case.

Merkin

I'm honestly still in shock at the amount of sugar you used! :eek:

Good points from everyone on allowing the tomatoes to gently simmer for as long as possible. I also use palm sugar as opposed to any other sugar when I'm cooking (a teaspoon of ) and it works very well as it cuts through the acidity a little without compromising the flavour or making them sweet. Palm sugar is usually used in Asian cuisine but I find it great with any other tomato based dishes as well.

PinkLemonade

I find the main reasons my sauces can turn bitter are:
1. I didn't sweat the onions enough
2. I burnt the garlic
3. I didn't fry the puree
4. I cooked the chopped tomatoes at too high a temperature
5. I didn't cook the sauce for long enough

If I'm making a quick sauce I dont bother with onion, it just takes too long to sweat them down I think. Just garlic and chilli!
I also love honey as a sweetener in tomato sauce too

MurdyWurdy

Have you tried using passata instead of tinned tomatoes? I've recently made the switch and made bolognese last night. It makes the sauce creamier and I think not as bitter and much nicer! You can get cartons in Lidl and Tesco for 59c.

I also recommend using a small amount of brown sugar instead of white to sweeten (like a tablespoon)

Melendez

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Dizzyblonde

Melendez wrote: »

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I use these all the time and find that one teaspoon of sugar per tin is enough.

Melendez

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RacoonQueen

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

I use these all the time and find that one teaspoon of sugar per tin is enough.

I use these too.

Make tomato sauce at least once a week and have never added sugar.

I add like a whole basil plant and cook it for at least an hour though so maybe thats why

Dizzyblonde

Melendez wrote: »

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Most likely the case, they're usually really good.

newmug

Melendez wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I used Roma brand, nothing added, just plain chopped tomatoes. Nah it's not a case of bad brands or bad batches with me, it's my method of cooking.

adam wolverhampton

Hi, i watched the Hairy Bikers a while ago and he advised using a wooden spoon when using acidic foods as the acid in the foods attacks
the metal in the utensils. I'm not sure how true this is but i have noticed that the tins of tom's i buy from lidl now have a plastic coating of some kind inside the tin.

"Aluminum Reactivity and Tomatoes

You don’t want to use aluminum (or copper) pots, pans or even utensils when cooking tomatoes. Aluminum is a reactive metal, so will react with the acid in tomatoes resulting in bitter flavors and duller colors for the tomatoes, and possibly damages and discoloration for your cookware.

Aluminum is a good choice for some types of cooking, because it is inexpensive, easy to clean, lightweight and highly conductive (second only to copper). Plus, it’s sourced from a fairly abundant material. But it’s just no good for cooking acidic foods (wine, citrus, tomatoes, chili, barbecue sauce, chutney, etc.). It’s also rubbish for cheese making, home brewing, and other kitchen adventures in which you are deliberately trying to control a reaction and just don’t want any uninvited guests at your party



Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/aluminum-or-stainless-steel.aspx#ixzz2T15Dh9bd

Qualitymark

Hmm. This sounds like a bad batch of tomatoes. I mostly use the Lidl cheap chopped tomatoes, and the sauces generally taste great. This is what I do:

1) Heat up good-quality olive oil in an iron or steel pot, with a bay leaf in the oil to flavour it. Chop onions and garlic and sweat them in olive oil. (The Italians won't use onions and garlic together - if you agree with them, leave out the garlic.)
2) Add good-quality lean mince if you're using meat. Stir and mix (with a wooden spoon - but then, I always use a wooden spoon) to brown it.
3) Add a tin of chopped tomatoes. Mix them in, and cover.
4) Add a good squirt of tomato puree. Rinse some red wine around in the tomato tin and pour that in. Add some chopped thyme, and a little finely-chopped celery.
5) Cook until delicious.

The heat I use is only middling - nothing's sizzling, things are simmering gently. When the sauce has combined, everything's obviously cooked through and the tastes have blended, I'll start cooking the pasta and grating some cheese.

Edit: forgot to say, when you're using bay leaves (and I use the leaves from my bay tree in everything from stew to rice pudding), always be sure to take them out. They shouldn't be eaten, because they don't break down in the stomach, and their sharp edges can slash your innards; or so I'm told. This may be a myth (http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/15342/are-bay-leaves-dangerous-to-unwittingly-eat), but I figure better safe than sorry. Either I take them out or expect those I serve food to know they should.