Drying and Preserving Maltese Sun-dried Tomatoes

The quintessential foods that come to my mind with the word Mediterranean are: olives, capers and sundried tomatoes. Finally, it’s time to share the sundried tomatoes with all of you! We met up with the most renowned tomato growers of the island, Joseph and Charles Muscat of Malta Sunripe to show us how they grow and prepare the tomatoes.

The secret to making the best possible sundried tomatoes comes down to the timing with every single step. Beginning with the month when the tomatoes are planted outside in the bush. They plant the tomato bushes in rows, or in tunnels as Joseph explained. The tomatoes grow underneath the leaves more so than facing the sun so as not to get overly burned beneath the direct sun. Joseph lifted up a bushel of tomatoes and I couldn’t believe how many were hiding beneath the leaves! It was like a treasure trove of gorgeous, red tomatoes hiding in secret until it was their time to make their public debut!

The next steps again have to do with the exact timing of the correct window in which the tomatoes are perfectly red and ripe and ready to be harvested and laid out beneath the sun. The beautiful, bright red Roma tomatoes are what they use to create the sweetest and most flavourful sundried tomatoes possible. Once they harvest the tomatoes from the bushes, they wash each tomato only with water and then put them through a small conveyer belt that slices each tomato one by one horizontally. From there, the sliced tomatoes are laid out by hand side by side and open-faced. Once the freshly sliced side of the tomatoes are laying facing up toward the sun, they are sprinkled heavily with sea salt. The sea salt keeps the tomatoes protected from the elements as they dry.

Everything they do is according to the weather and this year’s harvest was absolutely perfect. The days that the tomatoes were drying under the sun were the hottest days of this entire year. This was the week when the sun was shining directly down and no morning dew was present during any of the days that the tomatoes were outside drying. This is key because the drying process is to remove all of the water from the tomatoes and even something as simple as morning dew adds that moisture back in and will disrupt the process. The farmers prepare the tomatoes and then stand back and let the sun do its magic, all the while the whole family is praying hard for a perfect week of weather for these to turn out right. It’s a hands-off approach, yet at the same time, keeping a very close watch on the tomatoes as they dry.

For four days, the tomatoes sunbathe and dry to perfection. It is interesting to note that no nutritional benefits are lost with the drying of the tomatoes since it’s only the removal of the water and nothing else between fresh tomatoes and dried. Only the farmers would be able to predict with such precision which days to lay the tomatoes out. They know the weather much better than any meteorologist I’ve ever seen! This year Jo and Charles and all the Muscat family hit it out of the park on timing and precision.

Once the tomatoes have dried successfully it now becomes time to prepare them for market. We visited Joseph’s wife, Lucy-Anne in the kitchen of Malta Sunripe, where we got to see everyone putting the tomatoes into each jar. They stuff the tomatoes to the very top. From there, the only thing added is vegetable oil. Then they vacuum seal the top of the jar and wash the jar before labeling each one. And voila…the sundried tomatoes at Malta Sunripe are absolute perfection; fresh, ripe and ready to be sold now! Add it in with one of their incredible hampers as a gift or take some home for yourself.

Sundried tomatoes are wonderful to add to salads, on toast or fresh bread. They are fantastic in pasta dishes, in a wrap or a F’tira…the opportunities for adding this flavour to your dish are endless! Do yourself a favour and try Malta Sunripe’s little jewels of heaven in a jar and find out why this year’s

harvest was timed and grown to perfection! *Malta Sunripe products are made from fresh, handpicked and locally grown produce from the village of Mġarr.

All of their products are 100% free from preservatives or additives and free from GMO’s.

To see a wide selection of their products, visit the website here.