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I was trying to make regular tomato sauce for on my pizza. And I didn't want to buy any processed goods. So I bought tomatoes:

enter image description here

I put them into a blender and just blended them until it became smooth. For some reason, it turned pink, and it had a really bad flavour. It didn't taste like 'normal' tomato sauce.

How can I make it red, and thicker and taste more like tomato sauce?

Glorfindel
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user2879055
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    I have suspicion that that image is not of the actual tomatoes your bought. It is therefore confusing - please remove it. Then, we need a description of where you bought them, what type they were, what condition they were in, etc. So far, we can only guess. Please [edit] your question. –  Apr 04 '19 at 10:05
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    Did you actually cook this tomato sauce? – Richard Apr 04 '19 at 10:06
  • No these were the exact tomatos, 'trostomaten'. In the netherlands at the jumbo supermarkett – user2879055 Apr 04 '19 at 11:04
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    I think the seeds when crushed by the blender can give a bitter taste. – Pieter B Apr 04 '19 at 11:10
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    The picture looks like cherry tomatoes (unsure what that would be in Dutch), which are small and generally used for garnish or in salads. Different tomato varieties can make very different purees, which is why knowing the specific type you used is important :) – Erica Apr 04 '19 at 11:33
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    Specifically why it turned a pink color, [this is a duplicate of an earlier question](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/33858/17272). Why your pureed tomato doesn't taste good is a separate question. – Erica Apr 04 '19 at 11:55
  • Erica, they likely are what would be referred to as hothouse tomatoes when sold in clusters like that, often smaller than slicing tomatoes but larger than cherry or grape. It is not however that unusual to use cherry tomatoes in sauces particularly early in season when other tomatoes are bland and not sweet. – dlb Apr 04 '19 at 12:38
  • @dlb I was looking at the size of leaves and stem in proportion to the tomato -- but really, just wanted to make the point that it's really difficult to tell from this picture what variety they are, _and_ that knowing the variety can be important. I don't doubt cherry tomatoes could make very tasty sauce if properly cooked, they're one of my favorite varieties! – Erica Apr 04 '19 at 12:44
  • Agreed, hare to tell without seeing the tomato in person, but it is definitely not paste tomato. Many good sauces are made without them, but it takes more work. It was funny to see a show once where Mario Batali was making his staff oven dry thousands of cherry tomatoes for his restaurant because it was early season and they were the only tomatoes sweet enough and he insisted on fresh. Not something I would think of a restaurant doing, but they were. – dlb Apr 04 '19 at 12:57
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    Possible duplicate of [what makes red tomato sauce turn orange in colour?](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/33858/what-makes-red-tomato-sauce-turn-orange-in-colour) – Luciano Apr 04 '19 at 13:06
  • These on the photo are not cherry tomatoes, they are a slightly larger variety. But also in NL "trostomaten" can be tomatoes of any size, it just means "tomatoes on a vine". – Luciano Apr 04 '19 at 13:10
  • @Erica : the flavor part is answered in https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/46019/67 . (its about salsa, but still the issue w/ bitter flavors after putting tomatoes through a blender) – Joe Apr 04 '19 at 15:43

4 Answers4

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Tomato sauce is not made by just pureeing tomatoes.

This is not a recipe site, but searching online will find you many recipes for a simple tomato sauce suitable for putting on a pizza. They will generally include other ingredients (such as salt, sugar, and onions) and include some cooking time.

dbmag9
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  • Okey, that's somewhat of an answer. But I want to know why it doesn't do as I expected. – user2879055 Apr 04 '19 at 11:05
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    Have you done this before successfully? If so (and these particular tomatoes turned out differently) then edit your question, although the answer will probably just be that you had a particularly flavourless bunch of tomatoes. If not, then it turn out as you expected because you had unrealistic expectations. – dbmag9 Apr 04 '19 at 11:07
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    @user2879055 there is no real way to answer that question. There is no reason for blended tomatoes to behave like pizza sauce. So all we can do is to tell you that your expectations were wrong, and that if you want pizza sauce, you should follow a recipe for pizza sauce. – rumtscho Apr 04 '19 at 20:10
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Sauces can be made with non-paste tomatoes, and sometimes are, but in general specialty tomatoes are used for most pastes. These tomatoes include a long list of varieties, but often are pear or teardrop shape, have fewer seeds and a dryer texture with less juice in them and a salad or slicing tomato. Personally, when I make a sauce from scratch, I tend to mix slicing, and even cherry tomatoes in to up the flavor, but one of the costs of doing this is more juice so more cooking down to get to a thicker sauce as that extra water needs removed. Often, dried tomatoes will be used to overcome this.

The seed issue is real, and will affect both taste and color. But, the truth is, some people prefer to use seeds. I do not as I do not care for the bitterness I taste with them in.

However, even when using paste type tomatoes, at the puree stage the product will normally be far lighter, more of a tomato soup color than the rich red sauce you were picturing. This changes in the cooking down process. As you remove water, not only will the taste intensify, but so will the color. Additionally, as food cooks, the chemical and physical reactions that occur, such are carmelization will cause color changes. In this case those changes tend to deepen the color. Other ingredients will also tend to alter the color, either just by being added, say carrot in come recipes, or though reactions while cooking.

Note also, many fresh sauces will be lighter, more pink or orange, than processed, simply because many commercial sauces just like other products have added color. That is, they simply add red dye. OK, "food coloring."

dlb
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    Boiling a liquid will not cause caramelization since it requires temperatures of at least 110C for fructose and much higher for all other sugars. I have used plenty of deep red tomato sauce products none of which contained any dye, so that isn't it either. The pink color is likely because of high water concentration and the extra air the blender incorporates. – ElectronicToothpick Apr 04 '19 at 14:30
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The seeds are the problem flavor-wise, the skin also but less of a problem. Tomato seeds have tannins and other compounds that aren't particularly pleasant inside, when they get cracked open they release these flavors into your puree. The skins can be bitter as well, especially when you puree them, some varieties more than others.

Next time scoop the seeds out and think about peeling the tomatoes before you puree them.

A useful reference of why you peel and deseed is this answer.

GdD
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Yes removing the seeds themselves is important to avoid bitterness. However the jelly they are embedded in is a good source of umami. When you scoop out the seeds you can put them in a sieve over a bowl along with the tougher pulp and add a little coarse salt for 20 minutes, and then add the strained juice to the dish.

RFlack
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