It took moving to Turkey to understand how and why tomato paste – and its co-conspirators sweet and hot red pepper paste – is used in Turkish cuisine. I’d been using it mostly to boost the flavours of tomatoes, fresh or canned. Here, however, it’s used as an ingredient in its own right.
In this article, I’m sharing a few tips with you. How to use tomato paste in ways you may not have imagined before.
Hopefully, it’ll equip you to avoid the mistakes I made when starting to cook Turkish recipes. Most importantly: Substituting tinned tomatoes for tomato paste, thinking it’d improve the flavour. Big mistake!
I hope the five classic uses from the Turkish kitchen I’ve listed in this post will give you a new idea or two for using tomato paste to boost flavour in your everyday cooking.
A little background
Originally a practical way to conserve the summer bounty, the paste of sundried tomatoes, sweet peppers and hot peppers remain a crucial building block of Turkish cuisine.
In earlier times, neighbours would team up every September to sundry, purée and store the vegetables for conservation. One week would be set aside for the peppers, another for tomatoes, a third for pomegranates (more on that in another newsletter later), and so on. This way, the ingredients of peak summer lasted not a few weeks, but the whole winter. Some families still do this, but, alas, it’s a disappearing feature. Luckily, there are still vendors who sell pastes and concentrates made the old fashioned way for those of us who relish the superior flavour of this method.
This way of preservation is one of the major differences between Turkish and many other Mediterranean food cultures. In Turkish supermarkets, you won’t find much choice in canned tomatoes or passata-like sauces – if you can find them at all. Instead, you’ve got rack upon rack of large jars of tomato paste and red pepper pastes hot and sweet.
As you can probably imagine, this means the use of preserved tomatoes in winter differs substantially from, say, that of Italian cuisine. Where the Italian kitchen is full of tomato based sauces, even in winter, Turks keep the tomato sauces for summer. In winter, they instead use tomato paste as a building block for flavour in various ways. Not to bring back the fresh flavours of summer, but to contribute umami and depth of flavour to the dish.
Five ways the Turkish kitchen utilises tomato paste
I should note that for each of these uses, the tomato paste is often paired with red pepper paste (sweet or hot) for extra depth of flavour.
1. As flavouring in simple sautées
A lot of Turkish dishes start by sautéeing onions, sweet green peppers and tomato paste in olive oil. The tomato paste is added irrespective of whether the dish will end up as a sauce or not. It’s there as a flavouring in its own right. For example, you can simply add a little meat to the mixture, sautée, and you have a very popular Turkish dinner. A splash of water, and you have an umami laden sauce (with or without fresh tomatoes added). All you need alongside is a salad and some rice.
2. In marinades
You know that Turkish kebab you love? Chances are it’s got tomato paste in the marinade. In addition to adding a wonderful depth of flavour, the naturally occuring sugars help turn any grilled meat perfectly caramelised.
Try it: Turkish lamb shish kebab
3. As flavouring for vegetable dishes
A lot of traditional Turkish cooking is either meat free or uses only a little meat, for flavouring more than anything else. Tomato paste is crucial in these dishes, adding more umami and depth of flavour, helping give any vegetable based dish more flavour.
4. As flavouring for soups
Tomato paste, as well as red pepper pastes, is excellent for giving a flavour boost to any soups. If you add just the right amount, you’ll get an extra depth of flavour without turning it into tomato soup. Again, this is particularly important in any vegetable based soups.
- Try it: Turkish lentil soup
- Try it: Ezogelin soup (Turkish lentil soup with rice & bulgur)
- Try it: Root vegetable soup with Middle Eastern flavours
5. As a side dish or spread
Tomato paste is also used as a main ingredients in mezes, breakfast spreads and sauces so thick we may as well call them pastes, too. It’s often mixed with various combinations of walnuts, spices, olive oil, bread crumbs and garlic. Indeed, the Turkish version of muhammara is commonly made with tomato and red pepper pastes rather than grilled peppers.
- Try it: Adana smashburger
It may be worth buying Turkish made tomato paste
I buy my tomato paste from people I know in Antakya, South-Eastern Turkey. This region (as well as its neighbours either side of the Turkish/Syrian border) is renowned for its high quality home made winter preserves. These are so good you can eat them with a spoon, straight from the jar.
Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky. Most likely, you’ll have to use a commercially produced tomato paste in your everyday cooking. The quality may vary substantially based on what’s available where you live.
While not quite as good as the homemade variety, Turkish branded commercial tomato paste is usually more than decent. What’s more, they tend to last months after opening (my experience from both the UK and Norway has been that supermarket tomato paste goes mouldy very, very quickly). So if you have a shop selling Turkish style tomato paste nearby you, it may be worth trying it out.
Do you live in Turkey? Here’s where I buy my home made ingredients (not an ad, just a recommendation :)
